


I'm Okay

by Kitkat_Comics



Category: DC Animated Universe, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Bullying, Child Abuse, Cutting, Depression, Drugs, Eating Disorders, Feels, Gen, Heroin, How Do I Tag, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Nightmares, Problems, Recovery, Rudolph West's A+ Parenting, Secrets, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Team as Family, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vomiting, hurt wally west
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitkat_Comics/pseuds/Kitkat_Comics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wally's fine, really. Until he's not. </p><p>Wally's been keeping a secret for a long time, and people are starting to notice the effects it has on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Keep cool, kid

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR TRIGGERS!!!! There are a lot of things in this fic that aren't considered to be "pretty", please keep that in mind when reading. I will post in the notes before each chapter if there is something that could be triggering for some in the content, but I might not get them all so please be warned and read the tags carefully.
> 
> This is probably going to be a long angsty-ass fic because I'm a sadist Who LOVES to torture poor defenseless speedsters, so BE WARNED.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So trigger warnings in this chapter would be Referenced/Implied Child Abuse, so if you are uncomfortable with this content I encourage you to turn back now. I in no way shape or form support child abuse, this is a fictional piece of writing, and therefore the content has nothing to do with my own personal opinion. Read with caution, you have been warned.
> 
> Beta'ed by a friend, so any errors are my own.
> 
> Oh, and enjoy~!

There’s one word that could never be used to describe Wally West’s life; boring. He has the life that he had always dreamed of. He’s Kid Flash, a teenaged superhero heartthrob, he can break the sound barrier without breaking a sweat, plus he has the most awesome friends anyone could ask for. What more could a guy want?

A lot.

The fact is, not everything’s perfect in Wally’s life; far from it actually. Sure it’s never boring, fighting crime with a group of teenagers who respect and love him like family; that could never be boring.

But they are the only ones.

And they don’t even really _know_ Wally; only what he lets them know.

The team he’s on, the team he helped create, the team where he can smile and joke and flirt and it seems normal- _is_ normal; it’s all a simple excuse to just get away for a while. That’s what his father tells him every time.

 _“You’re not good enough to be a hero.”_ He’d say, _“You’re nothing more than a worthless wannabe; a freak of nature.”_

Wally tries not to listen to him when he says stuff like that.

_He’s just worried about me. That’s all. He’s just worried._

He tries really hard not to believe the harsh words.

He lets them fly over his head, because it hurts less to pretend he doesn’t hear, but won’t let it show that it does.

But sometimes it seems so much _easier_ to just _give in_ ; even just a little. Just to let the words sink in and maybe, just maybe it might not be so bad. Maybe one day he might be able to earn his father’s acceptance; his love-

No. His father loves him. He’s just worried.

He doesn’t tell Uncle Barry about his parents; he doesn’t think it matters. So what if his parents are strict? So what if they say things that are harsh and sharp and sometimes hurt more than Wally lets show? They’re his _parents_. They care about him; even if they don’t always show it.

He doesn’t tell Uncle Barry about the bruises. Wally knows how he would respond, that he wouldn’t understand. No one would. Wally lets himself get hit because he cares about his parents. He never wants to ever see his mother be struck again. So if he has to be hit, it’s okay.

He’ll heal anyway. 

 

~~~

 

 

“Goddamnit, Wally! If you eat that last piece, so help me God-!”

Wally pauses, sly grin plastered on his face, a slice of pepperoni pizza dangling just above his mouth, his head bent back. Looking sideways at the thirteen year-old who looks about ready to strangle him, Wally couldn’t help but wink deviously at the brunette before making as if to bite the pizza in slow motion.

“Wally!” Robin all but growls, lunging at the red-head. Laughing, Wally finishes the piece of pizza before the Boy Wonder even makes it to his side of the couch. “ _Wally!_ ” The boy whines once he realizes the precious food has been devoured. “ _So_ not cool, dude!”

“You snooze, you lose.” Wally says, shit eating grin sneaking its way on his face. Robin glares. “Besides,” Wally continues, “There’s still some on your plate.” And the way he says it makes the thirteen year-old’s eyes narrow.

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Robin hisses lunging for his plate as Wally reaches his arm out to snag it. The raven-haired boy makes it in time by shoving a bony knee into the others arm.

“Aw, come on, Rob! Learn to share a little!” Wally laughs wrestling the younger for the pizza.

“ _Hell_ no!” The smaller of the two says elbowing Wally in the chest from behind. Wally’s grip around the younger is momentarily lost as he’s shoved unceremoniously off of the couch, landing on the floor on his back with an _Umpf_.

Coughing slightly from the air being knocked out of him, Wally sits up and glares at the younger.

“ _Du_ de! Like, pointy elbows much?!” Wally says rubbing his chest. It hurt a lot more than what he was willing to show. Last night’s blow was still tender and Robin unknowingly hit Wally where the bruises were still a mix of ugly colors. But his best friend didn’t need to know that, so downplaying it to make it look like an over-exaggeration, Wally mock-pouts at his friend. “You play dirty, man. _Jeez_.”

Robin makes a noise of satisfaction and finishes his pizza before Wally can find the chance to steal it away. Wally mentally sighs with relief that his acting worked, while on the outside he remains playful and slightly annoyed.

“What the hell are you guys doing now?” Wally looks up to see Roy walk in, hair still dripping slightly from the shower, his perma-frown in place.

“Wally was being a dick,” Robin states without looking up from the TV, finishing the last of his pizza.

“Says the abuser,” Wally jokes. Robin scoffs.

“Like I really hurt you, Baby-Flash.” He mocks, standing up and brushing his hands off on his jeans. Taking his plate, he starts towards the kitchen. “He tried to steal my pizza, he got what he deserved.” Robin says matter-of-factly, with a shrug of his shoulders while passing Roy.

“ _Kid_ -Flash!” Wally says on instinct, mildly irritated by the mispronunciation, before realizing the jab his friend just made at him. “And I’m not a baby!”

From inside the kitchen, Wally can hear Robin’s laugh and instead of being angry he just smiles.

Standing up, Wally grimaces as his ribs and chest throb in protest but quickly hides it behind the smile before the pain on his face is noticeable. Apparently he isn’t quick enough, because Roy’s eyes narrow in the way that Wally knows is somewhere along the lines of worry and confusion.

Ignoring the questioning look the archer was giving him, Wally picks up his own plate and heads towards the kitchen. Inside, Robin is busy scrounging around the cupboards.

“Roy, where the hell’s the soap?” Robin calls.

“Behind the garbage,” The eldest replies distractedly from the doorway. Wally tries not to jump; he hadn’t realized Roy had followed him in. Turning slightly, Wally sees that Roy is still staring at him, frowning. Wally doesn’t really like the way Roy’s eyes keep going up and down his body; searching for something.

Inside, Wally’s slightly freaking out. He knows how Roy gets when he wants to know something. Sure it isn’t as bad as Robin, who basically stalks you until you tell him what he wants to hear. No, Roy’s different. He stares like he can see through you and Wally really hates that stare. He doesn’t think he gave anything away, and if Roy asks him about the grimace then he can just bluff it off as being from patrol. The problem with Roy is that he’s really good at telling when Wally’s lying to him. Wally doesn’t know how he does it but it seriously unnerves him. He can’t lie to Roy without him seeing through it, so he always tries extra hard not to let anything show around him so Roy doesn’t need to ask any questions.

On the outside Wally is neutral. He tries not to gulp when he sees Roy’s eyes narrow further and his frown deepen.

 _Don’t give anything away. Don’t give_ anything _away. Stay calm. Don’t give anything away. Don’tgiveanythingawaystaycalmstaycalmstaycalmSTAYCALMDON’T-_

“Why’s everyone so quiet?” Robin’s voice breaks through the near scream of Wally’s thoughts and he turns to see the boy wonder with an eyebrow cocked. Wally smiles, his natural failsafe.

“More like bored.” Wally says lightly. “Just waiting on you, dish-boy.” He laughs at the face he gets.

“Well you could _help_ you know.” Robin glares but goes back to drying a glass.

Wally helps out, ignoring the glare coming off of Roy and by the time they’re done with dishes, both Wally and Robin are back to joking and laughing and being normal.

Out of the corner of his eye, Wally can still see Roy staring at him but it’s more relaxed instead of staring-through-your-soul intense. Wally relaxes back into the routine of playing around with video games and poking fun here and there.

 

 

By 8:30, Wally has basically forgotten about earlier and is at Roy’s apartment door waving goodbye to Robin as the boy wonder heads home.

“See you at the mountain tomorrow, Baby-Flash.” Robin says waving. Wally groans.

“You’re not gonna let that one go, are you?”

“Not a chance,” The smaller grins and Wally groans again. “Oh. Roy?” Robin turns to the other red-head who grunts in acknowledgment. “You’re out of soap.”

Roy rolls his eyes. “Night, bird-brain.” Robin grins again then finally leaves.

Roy closes the apartment door and turns to Wally who suddenly feels chills creep up his spine.

The archer narrows his eyes and Wally wants nothing more than to shrink into the floorboards rather than face a questioning Roy.

“What?” Wally tries to play ignorant to what Roy is obviously trying to do with his persistent searching stare.

After a moment that feels like hours, but most likely about a minute, Roy sighs then makes his way towards the kitchen. Wally stands still for a couple seconds before following the taller red-head, slightly confused as to why he isn’t being bombarded with questions.

Roy motions for him to sit at the table. After a second’s hesitation, Wally obliges, sitting on the one closest to the doorway, just in case he needs to run. Roy brings over two mugs and places the one filled with hot chocolate in front of Wally. Wally stares down at the steaming liquid and prays that this will be over quickly. Roy sits across from him and takes a sip from his coffee before placing it down.

After about a minute of silence, Roy finally speaks.

“How bad is it?” Roy isn’t looking at him so he doesn’t see the blank look Wally’s giving him.

“Huh?”

Roy looks at him and sighs again before nodding towards Wally’s chest.

“Oh.” Wally feels his face redden from embarrassment and fights the relieved sigh that wants to escape from his mouth. _Roy doesn’t know how bad it is at home_ , he thinks then stops himself, biting his tongue. _Nothing’s bad at home so of course he doesn’t think that_. He fights the urge to hit himself for thinking something so stupid, instead he smiles calmly and looks back at the mug in front of him. “It’s okay.” He says, “Just a bruise. “ _Bruises, and most likely a fractured rib_ , “I got it on patrol last night, hasn’t fully healed yet.” His voice is calm and collected which kind of surprises him because his head is a mess.

He looks up at Roy who’s frowning again.

“I thought Barry had you on a leash.” Roy says, concern leaking into his voice. “He was with Ollie last night.”

 _Shit. ShitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitSHITSHIT_ -

Wally gives a sheepish smile. “It’s really nothing, Roy. I just-“

“You didn’t tell him.” Roy states, eyebrow rising.

Wally lets himself look a little guilty, because in truth, he _didn’t_ tell Uncle Barry about what happened to him, so technically he isn’t lying to Roy.

“Wally-”

“It’s really not that bad, Roy, I promise.” Wally says “I didn’t wanna worry him, plus, if he found out, I can kiss patrol goodbye for at least a month.” He tries to sound as innocently desperate as possible, even adding in the puppy dog eyes.

Roy stares at him for a moment; thinking. He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair.

“Fine, I won’t tell your overprotective uncle about your sneaking out,” when Wally’s smile starts coming back Roy raises a finger. “On one condition,” Wally nods quickly, anything to get this over with, “Don’t do it again, got it?”

Wally nods enthusiastically, smile lighting up his face.

“Promise!”

Roy raises his eyebrow again at how childish Wally must’ve sounded. Wally doesn’t even feel the need to be embarrassed because the utter relief of not having Roy harassing him further tops everything else.

After a while of just nonsense talking, Wally realizes what time it is. It's already past curfew.

After hastily throwing on his shoes and once again promising not to do stupid stuff alone, like patrol, Wally says his goodbyes and rushes to the nearest zeta-tube, thinking the whole way there of ways to ease his mother’s worried mind and lessen his father’s anger.


	2. Quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for Child Abuse, and Rudolph West's A+ Parenting... and food issues, but pretty slim mention for the food... anyway YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
> 
> Plus, sorry for the shortish chapter, more will be coming soon I promise! ^u^

Wally is ignoring the insistent beeping of his communicator, he was supposed to have been at Mount Justice almost two hours ago, and by now Robin is probably getting annoyed by the fact that Wally pretty much stood him up.

He would’ve gone. Really, he wants to go hang out for a couple hours with his friends, but he just doesn’t have the energy right now.

Yesterday had ended on a sour note. He hadn’t been expecting his parents to be fighting when he had gotten home, normally it’s never two nights in a row, but when he had walked through the door praying silently that his parents had gone to bed early, Wally had practically felt the tension in the air like a tangible object.

Nervous, Wally had silently taken off his shoes and inched down the short hallway space towards the stairs. By that point, Wally could hear his parents arguing, but his father’s voice hadn’t been overly raised so Wally thought that maybe the argument wouldn’t escalate. He had barely made it up two steps before he had heard his father’s voice spit out his name.

Wally had turned around to see his father rounding the corner to the kitchen. He had been glaring at Wally, already fuming at the sight of his son.

“Where the hell’ve you been, boy?” His father had snarled at him, grabbing Wally’s arm and practically dragging him off of the stairs. Wally had stumbled a little, having lost his footing, before standing, back straight, to face his father. _Don’t let him see how_ weak _you are. There’s nothing to be afraid of._

“Rudy, let the boy go.” Wally had heard his mother say from somewhere off to the side. His father had just squeezed his arm harder, which made Wally try to pull away from the discomfort.

“Why the hell’re you trying to protect ‘is brat?” Wally had smelled the alcohol on his father’s breath as the man in question had spat the words to his face.

“Rudy-”

“Mom, it’s fine,” Wally had said as quickly as possible, not wanting his father to lash out at his mother for talking out. Anger should never be shown to her, she never deserved it. “I was just out with some friends. Besides it’s not even that much past curfew-” His words had been cut off by his father yanking him forward.

“Who gave you the right to decide the rules in this house, _boy?”_ Wally hadn’t been expecting his father to throw him into the stairs, and it was all he could do not to let the yelp leave his mouth.

“I’m not making up any rules, I’m just stating a fact.” Wally had snapped, surprising himself. He had managed to get back on his feet without realizing it and shoved his father back a step, arms distance away from him.

Wally had heard the crack of his father’s fist before he had felt the pain exploding in his jaw. He had fallen back and slid down to the foot of the stairs before he could comprehend what had actually happened. His father had stood above him, cursing at him as he brought a foot to Wally’s stomach. The air had left Wally’s lungs, and he had lain there coughing as his father insulted him.

“What the hell gives you the right to talk back to me, you worthless _freak_?” The last word had been emphasized with another kick to the stomach. Wally had felt tears build in his eyes and it had taken everything not to let them fall. _Everything’s fine, he still loves me, he’s just strict, it’s alright. Everything’s okay. If I just learned to listen then this wouldn’t happen_. “Stupid fuck-up!” _Stupid, stupid, stupidstupidstupidstupid_ \- another kick and Wally can’t quite catch his breath- _stupidworthlessfreak-_

Wally had looked past his father to see his mother with her arms crossed, looking away, almost bored-like. Wally had had to close his eyes after that because when the next kick came, everything had gone dizzyingly grey around the edges. After a moment had passed, and there were no other blows, he had opened his eyes to find his father’s panting form standing above him. He had snarled something Wally hadn’t quite caught before he had walked off, shoving past Wally’s mother.

Wally had just lay there for a moment trying in vain to calm his breathing through the pain. Chancing it, he had looked up, only to see his mother glaring down at him. He had expected her to say something, but instead she had just turned on her heel and walked back into the kitchen.

Wally hadn’t really minded, he had just been glad his mother hadn’t gotten hurt. Besides he had been so used to his mother hating him for what he does by now that it had barely hurt anymore.

_She doesn’t hate me, don’t be stupid. She loves me. She… loves me… right?_

Wally had shoved the thought away. _She loves me, I know she does_. He had then used what little strength he still had to crawl up the stairs to his bedroom. He had curled up on the floor, not able to pull himself up onto his bed, and wished the tears would stop flowing down his cheeks.

_They love me, they’re just worried. Just worried. Just worried._

Wally had hugged himself into a shivering ball, replaying the words like a mantra.

_Dad loves me, mom’s just worried. They don’t mean to hurt me. They love me, so it’s okay. Everything’s okay. Everything’s fine. They love me they love me they love me theylovemetheylovemeit’sokayeverything’sokay…_

Wally had silently cried himself to sleep after what felt like hours.

Only to wake up, still on the floor when his mother had banged against his door. He had vaguely heard her say something about going out for the day, but had been too out of it to really listen. He had just curled back up in a ball on his place on the ground, too nauseous from the pain emanating from his ribs to get up for breakfast.

Wally had stayed there until the sun was high in the sky and his cell had started going off with texts from Robin, and stayed there still.

Currently, he’s trying to ignore the beeping of his cell, his com-link, and the fact that is stomach is telling him he’s way overdue for food.

He groans, forcing his body to sit up. Wally knows he needs food or he’ll regret it. Hauling himself onto his feet using his bed as support, Wally makes his way to his door. He knows his dad is at work, but that reassuring thought doesn’t stop him from being as silent as he can when going down the stairs. His dad could’ve come home early, and the last thing Wally wants is to upset his father again. So he slowly makes his way into the kitchen, pushing the pain aside, and opens the fridge. He takes leftovers, knowing they won’t be missed, and sits himself down at the table. He doesn’t bother heating it up; chicken’s just fine cold.

Even though the portion would’ve been small for a non-meta, Wally finds he isn’t really hungry. He eats majority of it before throwing the rest out and carefully cleans up after himself. He knows by now not to leave messes around the house.

After clean-up, Wally finds that he just feels exhausted. He pulls himself back up the stairs and back into his bedroom. He collapses onto his bed and lazily pulls the covers over himself, groaning at the movement.

He stays there for the rest of the day, which bleeds into the night.

No one comes up to tell him when it’s dinner.

He didn’t really expect them to so it’s okay.

He can skip a meal.


	3. It's just a bruise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for bruises, fainting and angry archers.... but on the bright side... LOTS OF TEAM TORMENTING~! ^u^
> 
> PS. Sorry for the late update, I meant to post this like last Thursday... but my friend who helps make my work slightly more legible was busy.... but alas~ Here it is~!

The next day, Wally wakes up just after nine in the morning. Blinking at his alarm clock, he tries to convince his sleep-fogged brain that he wants to get out of bed. By the time he achieves this and turns onto his back, it’s already nine-thirty. Wally just glares at the clock before cautiously stretching his arms above his head. He winces when the sore muscles are pulled, but it’s not overly painful anymore. Taking a deep, self-reassuring breath, Wally sits up and pulls his legs over the side of the bed. His ribs protest the movement, but it’s nothing Wally isn’t used to hiding.

He makes his way to the bathroom to take a much needed shower. _Just wash all the bruises away, like that ever worked_.

The hot water is a blessing on Wally’s skin and he finds himself just standing there, letting the hot water wash over him. He doesn’t stay long, though, knowing he shouldn’t use anymore hot water than needed, and instead, washes himself quickly, being careful around his tender ribs. _At least none are broken this time._

_Just bruised an ugly shade of purple._

Wally finishes quickly and dries off. His eyes catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and he stares. He’s pale. _God_ is he pale. His freckles scatter across his skin like tiny galaxies, his hair a flame of red atop his head. The bruises stand out like giant sore thumbs, all blotchy purples, blues, and greens, a dark contrast to his pasty skin. At least the one on his chin’s faded to being almost unnoticeable. _Nothing that can’t be hidden under a shirt. Nothing anyone will ever know about._

It’s the worst and the best part about this whole mess. The proof is right there where anyone could see, but so easily hidden behind cotton and polyester. The thing that terrifies Wally the most is that one day someone might see them; that he’ll have to answer the questions they’ll ask. _Where did you get these bruises? Did someone do this to you?_ He’s scared of how they’ll look at him; how they’ll treat him after finding out. So he hides everything behind such thin defenses like t-shirts and sweaters.

But at the same time he wishes someone would just _notice_ , notice something’s wrong, notice what he’s hiding. But what then? What if they find out and hate him for it? Everything would change. His mask of normalcy would be torn away, his little happy dream that everything’s okay would be shattered, he’d-

Wally turns away from the mirror and makes his way back to his bedroom.

 _Everything’s fine,_ nothing _is wrong_.

He wears a long sleeve shirt and pulls a sweater over top, just to be safe. Adds some jeans and sneakers, and he looks perfectly normal, nothing different about him, nothing anyone would question. He’s safe.

He doesn’t look at his cell-phone, knowing there’s at least thirty texts from Rob, probably all angry messages with pissed off looking emoticons, he just grabs it and slides it into his pocket. He’ll deal with it later, the acrobat can wait.

Wally figures he should head over to Mt. Justice before a certain bat-trained teenager breaks into his house and tries to kidnap him. He doesn’t need Rob bugging the house in retaliation, and accidentally learning something he shouldn’t. Wally trusts the raven-haired boy with his life, sure, but that doesn’t mean he thinks the acrobat would understand what happens in his home life.

Wally takes his comm off of his night-stand and puts it in his pocket before heading out of his room.

He makes it halfway down the stairs when he starts feeling dizzy. Wally tries to blink it away and continue down the stairs, but the movement makes his vision swim and grey around the edges. He can feel his knees shaking, but before he can do anything about it, his legs give out and everything goes black.

Opening his eyes, Wally feels Déjà vu at seeing the floor of the hallway. He’s sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs on his stomach, and the side of his face _kills_.

Wally groans, bringing a hand up to his head. He guesses it was to be expected, he hasn’t really eaten much in the past two days, and his body’s probably using all of its energy healing, so looking at it scientifically, it makes sense that he could end up fainting.

Doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Wally sits up slowly, not wanting to faint again. _Uncle Barry would be so pissed if he found out about this_ \- Wally stops that thought short. _Uncle Barry isn’t going to find out because I’m not going to tell him, he doesn’t need to know_. He didn’t need his uncle giving him another lesson about taking care of himself and the dangers of not eating. Besides, what’s the harm in keeping another secret from his mentor?

The pain’s already fading from his face by the time Wally gets back up on his feet. He decides that he needs to eat something before doing anything, so he makes his way into the kitchen.

His parents don’t appear to be home, so he finds some paper and a pen to leave a note - not that anyone will care or read it - before he forgets, saying he’ll be at Mt. Justice. After leaving it where it would be easily seen, Wally finds something to eat. He decides on cereal because it creates the least amount of mess. Besides, his parents won’t eat it so it doesn’t matter as long as someone does, right?

It’s already eleven by the time Wally’s out the door and heading over to the nearest Zeta-tube. His ribs have stopped protesting so much, it’s more of a mild burn, but Wally doesn’t mind. The run to the Zeta beam helps relieve some of the stress from his body, so when he walks through, three minutes later, he feels lighter.

He walks into Mt. Justice to find Robin and Kaldur occupying the rec-room. He can hear Megan from the kitchen, probably baking; fifty/fifty chance on it being edible. He doesn’t take one step through the doorway before he hears an annoyed bird’s voice.

“Hey, ditcher,” Robin says while flipping through channels on the TV, seemingly unhappy with whatever’s playing on any channel. Wally tries not to flinch at the irritated tone, he does deserve it. “Where were you off ditching to- wait, what happened to your face?” Robin suddenly asks, finally turning to look at Wally who’s still standing in the doorway.

Wally blinks, “Huh?”

“Your eye is bruised.” Kaldur says from the loveseat. His eyes calmly watch Wally from over his book. Wally just blinks dumbly.

Then he remembers that his face had hurt after he had fainted. So it did bruise.

_Shit._

He had completely forgotten, thinking it off as nothing. Wally really wishes he had thought to look in a mirror before leaving. _Oh well, too late now_.

“I fell.” He states nonchalantly, walking over and sitting on the opposite end of the couch from the acrobat, pointedly avoiding the skeptic look the younger is giving him.

“You fell,” Robin says carefully, making sure he had heard the words right. He doesn’t phrase it as a question and Wally has to fight the urge to shy away from the disbelief on his friends face.

“Y-yeah,” Wally stutters out. The acrobat simply raises an eyebrow, looking for an explanation. “Downthestairs.” He rushes out in a hushed mumble, too embarrassed to speak normally.

“Wait, what?” Robin chokes on a laugh and Wally feels his face flush, looking anywhere but at the incredulous looks his teammate is giving him.

“It’s not that funny,” he says, frowning as the raven-haired boy just starts laughing.

“No, this is great!” The acrobat says betweens laughs, “The world’s fastest kid, tripping over his own feet!” Wally glares, which in turn just makes Robin laugh harder.

“Robin,” Kaldur’s eerily calm voice warns from the seat opposite Wally. His book now sat on his lap, page marked with a finger, and he’s giving a very pointed look at the boy wonder.

“Sorry, sorry,” The thirteen year old amends, clutching his gut, still giggling, “But this is just perfect.” Then, as an afterthought, he recomposes himself somewhat and narrows his eyes at the speedster. Wally tries not to cringe at the devious look the younger is giving him.

“What?” Wally snaps, unintentionally sounding defensive.

“Since when do _you_ trip over yourself?” Robin asks, decidedly pleased with himself for making the speedster squeamish.

“I-it happens!” Robin just grins like he’s discovered a secret no one else knows and that he can undoubtedly use against his friend. Wally knows right then and there that Rob is never in a million years going to let this one down. “Can we just drop it, _please_?” The words come out slightly more desperate than Wally had intentioned, which makes his _supposed_ best friend grin harder.

“Wally, you’re here!” Megan says as she flies in from the kitchen, levitating a plate of-only mildly burnt-cookies beside her, followed by a grumpy looking Superboy. Before Wally can even grin or say anything flirtatious, the Martian is hovering in front of him, full concern etched onto her face, and looking stuck between wanting to hug Wally or stay put. Wally hates that look on people the most, especially when it’s aimed at him. It’s always mixed with pity and he absolutely _hates_ being pitied. But on the normally always cheerful Martian, Wally only sees genuine concern and worry, not a trace of pity. It doesn’t stop him from blaming himself for ruining Megan’s beautiful smile, but does make him feel a little bit better knowing she doesn’t _pity_ him. “You’re hurt,” she says, and the utter sadness in the girl’s voice makes Wally want to cringe away in guilt for making her upset.

“I’m fine, beautiful,” he says instead, with as much sickly sweet warmth as he normally would when flirting. Megan seems to relax a little at this which makes Wally grin.

“Yeah, he tripped himself on the stairs,” Robin butts in, a cheeky smile painted across his face.

“Shut up, Rob!” Wally whines more than says as he steals a handful of cookies from the plate before Megan puts it down on the table. They’re burnt, but still edible chocolate chip cookies.

“So Kid-Flirt is now Kid-Klutz?” Artemis says from somewhere behind him. Wally almost chokes on his third cookie in surprise. “I guess it makes sense,” She says snidely. Wally turns his head to glare at her as she walks in.

“Oh, shut it, replacement.” He snaps. He really doesn’t need Artemis of all people to ruin his day. She just smirks.

And then Robin starts spouting out some tale about how much of an apparent fail Wally is, on how he managed to trip himself up and down the stairs (“Not what happened, dude!”). None of which is true, but Artemis is definitely using it to taunt Wally. Great, just what he needs. Throughout the whole laugh-fest, also known as “beat-up-on-Wally’s-dignity-fest”, and the outright bickering of Wally and Artemis, no one notices the computer announcement of another archer.

“What’s all the commotion about?” Roy asks from the doorway, decked out in his Red Arrow uniform.

“Just mocking Wally on managing to kiss the stairs,” Rob supplies, greeting Roy with a wave, shit-eating grin in check.

“Rob’s being an ass.” Wally says without looking up at the other red-head. He tries in vain to ignore Rob and Artemis’ snickering.

“Oh, come on, Kid-Klutz,” Artemis says standing up, “Just because you’re embarrassed-”

“I’m not embarrassed!” Wally snaps which makes Artemis’ grin turn devilish.

“Says the tomato face,” Robin says from behind his hand, obviously trying to control his laughter.

Wally just groans, burying his face in his hands. “Please tell me you have a mission for us, or _something?_ ” Wally pleads.

Roy must decide he doesn’t want to know and instead walks over to the computer. The rest of the team follows suite, all the while, Robin’s still throwing jabs at Wally.

“But no, seriously, you fell down the stairs. That’s honestly the worst excuse I think I’ve ever heard. I think I’d be more apt to believing that a girl slammed her door in your face than you _fell down the stairs_.” The acrobat mocks. Wally frowns and tries to think about whether that was a compliment or not.

“I…” he contemplates, “Was that a double insult, or was there a compliment in there somewhere?” Rob just shoves him teasingly and Wally shoves back.

Roy brings up a bunch of different images onto the screen, one of which looks like an old abandoned warehouse, and another of a woman in a lab-coat.

“If you guys are done,” Roy says, turning around and stopping short, eyes locked onto Wally’s face. “Who punched you out?” Roy asks, glaring. Wally feels his face flush again and looks down at his suddenly very interesting shoes.

“We told you, the stairs.” Robin chirps happily, earning an elbow in the side for his efforts.

“Dude, shut up!” Wally hisses, still refusing to look up at Roy. He can feel the glare the archer is giving him, and not for the first time that week, Wally wants nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear.

“Red Arrow,” Kaldur speaks up and Wally has never felt so relieved in his life. “With what, may I ask, do you need our assistance with?” Wally finally feels the glare leave his direction as the archer’s attention switches back to the matter at hand.

Roy starts explaining the mission, something about drugs and Meta’s, but Wally isn’t really listening. He knows he probably should, but he can’t keep his mind from wandering back to Friday night. Now that he thinks about it, Rob isn’t harassing him about going out on patrol alone, which means that maybe Roy didn’t tell him. _But would Rob really be all that concerned?_ Wally knew for a fact that the younger sidekick was allowed on patrol by himself, or at least that’s what he says. But if Roy _did_ tell him, wouldn’t he have been concerned with Wally’s black eye? _What if he doesn’t care? What if-_

Wally stops that thought short. Of course Rob cares. Best friends care about each other right?

And besides, it isn’t like Wally’s lying about anything. He did fall down the stairs; Rob’s just the one spouting how he fell. Wally never actually stated whether he tripped or not, so technically he’s _not_ lying. Bending the truth, maybe, but no one needed to know - especially not Roy - about the fact that he had fainted from not eating, which just so happened to be while he was going down the stairs.

_Not lying. Not at all._

“Meet back here in five.” Roy says, dismissing them and drawing Wally back to the present.

Wally turns to leave with Robin who’s going on about man-eating ants or something, but Wally isn’t really listening. He’s too busy trying to ignore the glare coming from Roy. Even though the archer and Kaldur are busy talking, what appears to be battle strategy, Roy’s glare isn’t wavering. It makes Wally wonder how it’s possible for someone to keep up a conversation and glare whole-hearted daggers into someone else at the same time.

Maybe he should ask Rob, the Bat seemed to be able to do it on command, either that or all he ever does is glare. But hell, he’s seen the mini-bat do it before. Is there something Wally’s missing about glaring? Every time he tries to stab someone with a glare, they just laugh.

Wally thinks it over while quickly pulling on his uniform. By the time he and Rob are walking to meet up with the rest of the team, the question’s eating at him.

“Hey, Rob?” He starts, swallowing the last of Miss Martian’s cookies. The raven haired boy hums in acknowledgement, not looking up from his wrist computer. “Do you think you could teach me that glare that everyone but me seems to be able to do?” He asks, wiping his hands on his pants.

“What?” the smaller of the two turns to look at Wally, curiosity and humor written across his face.

“You know, the Bat-glare,” Wally says, un-phased. Robin just starts laughing.

“Why do you want to learn how to Bat-glare?” he asks between chuckles.

“’Cause I’m the only one who can’t,” He replies bluntly. “I mean, everyone can do the creepy-bat-stare down. Kal has his I-know-what-you-did-so-fess-up-before-I-bring-it-up look, I don’t think Supey understands the concept of smiling, Artemis glares because she’s Artemis, and I swear that Roy’s glare could physically harm someone. So yeah, everyone can somehow Bat-glare but me.” Wally blurts out in one breath.

Robin thinks it over for a second, smirking “Miss M. doesn’t glare,” He points out.

“Yeah, because she’s too much of a kind-hearted person! She doesn’t count! And if she did glare, it would be terrifying. Really, really nice people’s glares are scary, Bat-scary.” Robin considers this for a moment, then the ‘I-just-hacked-the-motion-sensors’ smile stretches itself over his face.

“Did you just call Batman nice?”

Wally stops and thinks it over. “Uggghh!” Robin starts laughing again, probably because of the face Wally must’ve been making. Images of a smiling Batman flash through Wally’s mind, making him cringe. “I think I’m gonna have nightmares.”

“Yeah, and then Batman will smile and give you cookies!” Robin laughs at the horror on Wally’s face. “But, no seriously. What brought this on?” He asks, regaining his composure.

“Nothing, I’m just jealous that I can’t glare sharp, pointy objects at people.” Wally mutters.

“You’ll get there one day,” the raven-haired acrobat grins beside him, and Wally is slightly unnerved.

“Kid!” Wally turns to see Roy signaling him over.

“Meet you in the ship.” Rob says before continuing on his way, leaving Wally alone to fend for himself. He is suddenly very aware of the fact that he has been left alone with an angry archer, who just so happens to be openly glaring at him and marching over.

“You mind explaining this to me?” The older red-head growls.

“What?” Wally asks, feeling small. Roy stops, only an arms’ length away.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Wally.” Roy takes another step forward and Wally takes one backwards out of instinct, which is stupid, because no matter how mad he could ever make Roy, the eighteen year-old would never raise a hand to him. Roy takes another step forward and Wally finds out that the wall is a lot closer than he had originally thought. Why are hallways so small? “What happened to our little agreement?” He continues, taking another step towards Wally. “And don’t tell me you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget!” Wally says quickly, “And I didn’t break the promise!”

“Really?” somehow Roy’s eyes manage to narrow further. “Then where the hell’d you get the black eye?!” Roy’s voice rises and Wally glances down both ends of the hallway. Empty.

“I fell.” He says, staring down at the ground between them. God, could he look any guiltier? But he wasn’t lying. _He wasn’t!_

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!” Wally can hear the desperation in his voice but he doesn’t care anymore. “I tripped and fell down the stairs. I didn’t break our promise, so stop yelling at me like I did something wrong!” It takes Wally a moment to try and compose himself. For some reason he feels like crying, but he’d never in a million years cry in front of Roy, so he pushes the feeling away and swallows the lump in his throat. “I tripped and fell and it’s stupid, so can we please not talk about it anymore and just let me go on this stupid mission already?” Wally waits for Roy to say something. Finally, the archer sighs and Wally peeks up to see Roy pulling a hand through his hair.

After a moment during which Roy stares at him with a not-quite-a-glare, the archer sighs again. “Fine.” he grumbles out. Wally almost beams, “Just-” he pauses, and Wally almost gets that sinking feeling again. “Just promise me you’ll take better care of yourself.” Wally smiles and nods enthusiastically. “I mean it.”

“I promise,” he says, giving Roy an unexpected hug. “See you later!” he says before Roy can argue, and runs to the Bio-ship to meet up with everyone else.

“What took so long?” Rob asks as Wally buckles himself in.

“Nothing, really. Red wanted help escaping a dinner with GA,” He says smoothly. Rob grins.

“You gonna save his lazy hide?”

Wally snorts. “Nope.”

Wally feels eyes on him and glances to his left. He’s slightly bothered by the frown Conner’s giving him.

_Was he listening before? How much did he hear?_

Wally tries to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut.

_It’s fine. You have nothing to hide, just stay cool and focus on the mission. He’ll probably forget about it by tomorrow._

The thing is, Wally isn’t sure he wants him to.


	4. The Experiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY FOR MY ABSENCE!!! School is demanding and awful and so are flues. AND BLEH IT SHOULD ALL JUST STOP!!
> 
> Anyways~ TRIGGER WARNINGS for Rudy's A+ parenting (again)... and food issues...(kinda? We'll just call it experimenting)... Anxiety Attacks... Angsty thoughts... (like the whole way through)....oh and broken bones...?
> 
> So i will most likely only be posting on weekends, maybe sporadic weekdays... meh. 
> 
> My awesome friend... who now want's a code-name... so "Editor_K" is still -amazingly enough- helping me with this, even though the last chapter had like 70 things I needed to fix and this one made it to my new all-time record of 129 errors, LOL i think Ed_K's giving up on me, but anyway, KUDOS TO YOU MY FRIEND~!
> 
> As always HEED THE TAG WARNINGS... which are subject to change... and by change I mean add-ons... ENJOY~!~!

“I _wasn’t_ skipping school. The teacher must have marked me absent by mistake!” Wally says defensively.

“Don’t raise your voice at me, boy.” His father growls, anger apparent in his voice. His fists are clenched at his sides. Wally just groans and turns around to make his way upstairs. He doesn’t feel like dealing with his drunkard father right now, his day has already been crappy enough without having to deal with his father’s moods. But you don’t walk away from Rudolph West. “Where do you think you’re going?” another growl.

“Putting my crap upstairs. You gotta problem with that?” Wally snaps without thinking. _Shit, well there goes two rules broken, why not make three?_

“Who do you think you are, using that tone with me? You freak!” His father sneers, “Get your ass back down here this instant!” Wally glares, but takes the couple of steps back down to the floor to stand in front of his father nonetheless, throwing his bag down at the foot of the stairs. His father grabs his arm, pulling Wally close to snarl in his face. “You think you can just do whatever the fuck you want, don’t you?” He squeezes Wally’s arm harder and the stench of alcohol is all Wally can smell. “Don’t you dare start throwing your shit wherever you please-” Wally rips his arm out of his father’s grasp, a bitter laugh escaping his throat, devoid of any mirth. He feels like fighting and if that’s what his father wants, he’ll gladly give it.

“Oh please, just make up your mind already!” Wally bends down to scoop his book-bag back up but his father grabs it from him and throws it back down. “Now, you can’t blame that on me,” His voice is laced with sarcasm which isn’t appreciated, if the fist connecting with his jaw can say anything about it. Wally hits the stairs. Hard.

“Listen here you smart-mouthed punk, if I get one more call from that school of yours about you skippin’ class, you can kiss your play-heroes goodbye.” His father stands above him, fuming, but despite Wally’s better judgment, he doesn’t feel the least bit intimidated. He feels stupidly courageous right now, like nothing his father could possibly do would be able to bring him down.

“Like you could do that.” Wally glares up at his father as he pushes himself to his feet. Even standing, Wally is several inches shorter than the man in front of him, but it doesn’t faze him. He knows he’s acting reckless and stupid, but he feels high off of adrenaline, being able to face his father like this.

But then his father’s grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling their faces close. “You can’t play road-runner without running.” His father replies, the threat evident in his words. Wally’s eyes widen slightly as the words register in his brain, fear flashing across his face before he can control it. His father sees that he’s won the battle between them - _not like there was really any chance of it going any other way_ \- and shoves Wally back a step, letting go of his shirt. “Go upstairs and stay in your goddamned room.” Wally just stands there, frozen, the adrenaline rush gone.

_And I thought I could go up against him? Stupid idiot._

Then he’s following the order without question, grabbing his bag before turning around and heading back up the stairs.

“Oh,” his father calls after him, “You can forget about dinner! I’m not wasting food on an ungrateful screw-up like you!” Wally doesn’t even look back.

He gets to his room and closes the door silently. _Don’t slam doors, it’s not your property, don’t make him mad._ He presses his back to the door and slides down, bringing his knees up to his chest. He feels like screaming but he doesn’t know why. His hands are shaking so he bunches them up into fists and wraps his arms around himself, rocking slightly.

_He loves me._

_He’s just worried about me. He just wants me to do well in school, that’s all. So if I do well in school he’ll be happy and everything will be okay. If I’d stop being such a worthless freak, then maybe he’d care about me. No. He loves me, he does… right?_

Wally groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his temples.

“Of course he does.” He whispers to himself before taking a deep breath. _Stop being so stupid._

Wally stands up and starts pacing. He’s gotta get his mind off of things for awhile, but he can’t go to Mt. Justice, ‘cause technically he’s ‘grounded’, so hanging out with friends and hiding everything behind a smile isn’t an option. He can’t go down and get something to eat even though he’s _starving-_

Wait, _food!_

The last time Wally had eaten anything was during second-to-last block, so roughly - Wally checks his bedside clock -  three hours ago. He already feels like he could eat a horse, but that’s probably because he had PE last block, so his body had run through the calories he had eaten faster than they would have if he had been in French class. He knows that a speedster needs to eat a lot to be able to function efficiently, but how long could one last _without_ food?

He pauses and thinks it over before rummaging through his desk looking for an empty notebook.

Nothing like a little experimenting to keep the mind occupied.

 

 

 

~~~

 

Wally thinks this is actually the worst idea he has ever come up with. It’s so bad, he might even add it to the “never _ever_ do again” section of the bad ideas list. Somewhere between “roller-skating using super-speed” and “cookie-dough snowball fight”, but probably after “Whipped cream on Roy’s sleeping face”- that one still tops everything else. Even though this was a seriously awful idea to begin with, Wally’s determined to see it through. After all, he isn’t known for being a quitter.

He has always been a scientist, when he was younger he’d experiment with food to see what combinations tasted the best, worst, and simply “okay”. He’d play with his chemistry set almost every day until he ran out of chemicals, then he’d just buy more and continue playing. He was fascinated by the stars, the moon, aliens, dinosaurs, everything. Well, except magic. Wally just wasn’t a fan of all of the tricks and gimmicks; the only thing he admittedly enjoyed about them was trying to figure out how they worked; what their secrets were. But after that, they were boring to him.

By the time he became Kid-Flash, he hadn’t outgrown the desire to know what made things tick.

So being the scientist that he is, it’s only natural that he wants to learn about the weaknesses of a speedster, should they be used against him. No harm in a little experiment, right?

_Wrong_.

Wally is almost positive that his stomach has somehow managed to digest itself twice in the span of eighteen hours. Though impossible as it may be, that is exactly how his stomach feels. His mother had already came up and told him that he was allowed to eat, but he was adamant on completing what he had set out to do. That was thirteen hours ago.

Now, Wally’s staring up at his ceiling, contemplating how much of an idiot he is for thinking this was a good idea. _Oh well, no point in quitting now, not without proper results._ So he keeps it up.

But as time stretches on, Wally finds it slightly unnerving how _easy_ it becomes. After awhile, the stomach pain seems to fade and surprisingly enough, his will doesn’t waver. After hungry came starving, which turns into ohmygodmystomachisdefinitelyeatingitself, then into I’m-gonna-waste-away-into-nothing, but after that it just kind of stops. The hunger just sort of _leaves_. To put it another way, Wally just _doesn’t_ feel hungry anymore.

By that point, Wally should probably take the clue and eat something, but he wants to know _what_ comes after nothingness? He feels clear-headed but he knows he’s most likely _not_ , so it ends up taking him about another two hours of internal debating to decide whether or not he should end the experiment.

His questions are answered when he gets up to grab his notebook from the desk, and the whole world seems to tilt sideways. Wally doesn’t even notice the fact that he just slumped to the ground, only that now his room is spinning around in circles. Or it’s just his vision, which is also grey around the edges, either way, it’s rather alarming. His ears are ringing, which isn’t helping anything and Wally can’t help but freak out slightly. He finds himself leaning up against his desk, waiting for his vision to just _stop_ its rollercoaster movements because they’re giving him a headache, but he’s too scared to close his eyes, ‘cause what if he _can’t_ open them again?

He knows the idea’s preposterous, he’s just low in blood sugar and had almost fainted… admittedly for the second time in just over a week - but who’s keeping count? He’ll be _fine._

“Ok,” he says to himself after a moment, a nervous chuckle leaving his lips. “Time for food.” His voice is shaky to his own ears, which are still ringing in a low hum, and does nothing to calm his short frantic breaths. _Deep breaths, deep breaths._

His vision clears slightly but he still feels light headed, so he takes his time standing up. _Thank God for sturdy furniture._

Wally almost gives into laughing like a little kid at the fact that it seems to be more of a challenge to get himself _down_ the stairs to get something to eat than it would have been to stay _away_ from the food. Making his way down the stairs takes more effort than Wally will _ever_ admit, but he makes it down without blacking out and smashing his head into the stairs. _Thank God_. He just takes an absurd amount of time, having to pause on every couple of steps to breathe and will the grey in his vision to just leave him alone for a minute.

By the time he makes it into the kitchen, he’s a panting, sweating mess of shaking limbs. He almost collapses in relief at seeing the fridge standing before him, but then realizes that he needs the food from _inside_ the fridge before he can celebrate. He grabs the first thing he finds-left over spaghetti- and it’s a miracle he doesn’t keel over right there from the utter happiness he’s feeling right now.

He doesn’t even care that he _hates_ cold pasta sauce, he just digs in. He gets three heaping mouthfuls in before pausing for air and realizing that his comm’s going off. He takes about three seconds to debate which is more important; the comm or the food. He doesn’t want Batman getting all Bat-glare on him for not answering _again_ \- he got in crap after the ( _very_ un-authorized) mission last week - so he picks door one.

“Kid-Flash.” Kaldur’s ever calm and collected voice comes buzzing through.

“Hey, Aqualad.” Wally responds. “Does Batman have a mission for us?”

“Yes-” The Atlantean starts, but Wally’s already rushing ahead.

“Awesome, be right there!” Wally chirps, a smile grazing his lips. “Kid-Flash, out.” He ends the call and starts cleaning up, ignoring the fact that there’s still half a container of spaghetti left uneaten. He puts it away absentmindedly and runs up to the bathroom to get cleaned up and change into his uniform.

He leaves through the back door, making sure he locks it after himself and runs to the nearest Zeta-tube, making it to Mt. Justice not two minutes after hanging up on Aqualad.

The rest of the team is already there, standing in a line in front of Batman, waiting for mission details. Wally zips over to stand beside Rob who glances up from his wrist computer with a grin on his face.

“Mutant ants, dude, it’s definitely mutant ants.” Wally just blinks and he’s _sure_ Rob is rolling his eyes under the mask, but before he can question the younger’s statement, his attention is drawn to the front when Batman starts talking.

“There have been multiple energy disturbances coming from Atlanta and the surrounding area. Certain tech has been stolen from different S.T.A.R. Labs facilities across the country, and we have been tracking them to this location,” A screen appears behind Batman that shows a zoomed in satellite view of a wide, forested area outside of Atlanta. “We have reason to believe that whoever has stolen the tech is also the cause of these disturbances. The team is to infiltrate their base, retrieve the stolen technology, and destroy their work.”

Five minutes later and the team is in the Bio-ship, on the way to Atlanta.

“Dude, how did that have anything to do with mutant ants?” Wally asks, not two minutes after leaving the ground.

“Think about it. It’s _S.T.A.R. Tech_ , they’ve always had weird crap. And if it’s making energy disturbances then it’s gotta be _something_ cool. So why not mutations?” Robin says matter-of-factly.

“But ants? Seriously?”

“Why not? There’re lots of them so there wouldn’t be a shortage any time soon, plus how cool would that be? It’d be like Killer Moth, but instead, a bunch of giant ants.” Robin says excitedly, and Wally can’t help but look at him with a disturbed expression.

“So, we now know who’s first to turn into a creepy scientist.” He says, but then thinks it over, “I might have read a book about that… I think they killed the man-eating ants with chainsaws,”

Rob grins then flicks Wally in the arm. “So where have you been? I haven’t seen you all week.”

“I’ve been busy,” Wally responds automatically. The acrobat just raises an eyebrow expectantly. “With other things.” he continues, but the look on the younger’s face doesn’t go away.

“Wait. Don’t tell me you _actually_ have a life?” Artemis asks with faux amazement from the other side of the ship. Wally turns and glares openly at her.

“Yes, I do, thank you very much, Ms. Eavesdropper.” He says, irritated. She just smirks.

“What _do_ you do in your spare time?” Rob asks, his voice light and curious.

He turns back to Rob. “Lots of stuff!” Wally says defensively. “And who’s side are you on?!”

Robin raises his hands in a placating manner. “Just curious.” He says nonchalantly. “You just never talk about your home life.”

“Yeah, well, maybe because it’s none of your business.” He snaps and Rob’s eyes widen. The thirteen year old makes as if to apologize, but Wally cuts him off. “Just forget it.” He mutters, turning to stare out the window. _Great job, idiot. Way to hurt your friend._ He ignores the looks he’s getting from everyone and just focuses on the passing scenery.

He didn’t really mean to snap, it’s just that Wally’s life isn’t anything special. He doesn’t really have any friends outside of the team and Roy. Everyone at school either makes fun of him because of his hair or the fact that he’s smart, or they avoid him like the plague because they think he’s a freak. He’s used to it. It’s not like it’s recent, it’s always been that way, ever since he was a kid. He’s getting through school just fine without friends. Sure, he’s lonely, and the bullies are rough, but the fact that he has the team makes up for it.

_Then why do I keep shoving them away?_

Because they wouldn’t understand, they’d think he was a freak. _They probably already do_. So he doesn’t talk about his home life, or in reality, the lack thereof.  He doesn’t talk about his parents, and he’s pretty sure majority of the team still think the Flash is his dad. He _wishes_ that were true.

Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris have always been nothing but kind and loving towards him. At first it had kind of freaked him out, they were so… _friendly_. Wally hadn’t been used to people acting friendly around him. But then Uncle Barry had taught him how to ride a bike, and Wally had felt like it was okay, like he was finally allowed to act normal around people. When he had found out that his uncle loved science as much as he did, well that had been one of the happiest days of his life. When he was around his aunt and uncle, he realized that he could talk and not have to be scared of being hit; they even _wanted_ him to talk and spend time with them.

Sometimes when he was younger, he would pretend that Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris were his real parents, and those were the days he loved the most. But as he had got older he had started feeling guilty about this game. It isn’t right to wish that he had different parents. His parents love him, he _knows_ they do, but he can’t stop himself from wanting Uncle Barry to be his dad, just like he can’t stop himself from hating his own father slightly. This just makes him feel guiltier and guiltier every day. _What kind of person hates their own father?_

A freak. A pathetic. Worthless. _Freak_.

“KF?”

Wally blinks. They had landed while he was spacing out. He looks up to see Rob standing and looking at him, eyes slightly narrowed; nervous. Wally blinks again and like flipping a switch, he’s smiling and getting out of the Bio-ship with everyone else.

“Sorry, was zoned out.” The mask seems to fool Rob who relaxes slightly. Wally tries not to feel guilty about the fact that he’s been lying to his best friend about almost everything in his life. _Two can keep a secret._

Aqualad reminds everyone what they need to do. All Wally has to do is scout ahead when they get close enough to the enemy’s base to see how the security is. Simple.

And then they’re off. They still have a ways to walk first so for now the team’s staying together. Wally would almost feel better if they _did_ split up, that way he wouldn’t have to feel everyone’s constant glances on his back. He feels crappy enough without having them making him feel nervous.

_Just talk to them._

_Yeah, in the middle of a mission, seems like a_ great _idea_. Wally would rather leave it alone. _The team doesn’t need to know how much of a freak you are, they probably already think you’re worthless. Like they’d care about your home life. Stop acting like a child!_

Wally’s giving himself a headache. _Just focus on the mission, stupid_. He feels exhausted. When this is all over, he’s just going to go home, ignore his life, curl up in a little ball, and just sleep.

The longer they walk, the worse he feels. His head is officially pounding, and it’s taking everything in him to ignore the insistent glances of his friends. Rob, most likely silently elected as the messenger, strolls over to walk beside him.

“Hey, about before…” He starts, but Wally just shakes his head.

“Forget about it.” He mumbles. Rob nods but looks like he wants to say more.

“Are you… are you feeling okay?” Wally blinks and looks over at the shorter boy. “You’re really pale, like paler than normal.” Oh.

“I’m fine.” he lies.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just a little tired.” He throws in a small smile, hoping to convince the bird. Robin nods after a moment, uncertainty still written on his face, but leaves it alone. Wally’s really starting to hate himself for lying. _It’s better this way, they wouldn’t understand, just act normal and they’ll forget about it in no time._

_Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad._

Maybe letting them in could help. Have someone on his side. Maybe they would understand, maybe just a little.

Wally doesn’t know much about the team’s families. He knows that Martian Manhunter is Megan’s uncle, but he doesn’t know about her parents. Kaldur never talks about his family, just his King. The one time Wally had managed to get something out of the Atlantean, he had only said that he didn’t know who his father was. Wally had left it alone after that. Conner doesn’t really have anyone but the team and the League - minus Superman. Honestly, Wally thinks that maybe he has the most in common with the clone in that aspect, but he doesn’t want to bring anything up to the Kryptonian, since Conner has this habit of blowing up in a rage when he doesn’t understand something. And Wally _knows_ he wouldn’t understand that someone’s parents could treat their own with hatred, even after the cold shoulder he got from Big Blue. Wally knows absolutely nothing about Artemis’ parents, just that _supposedly_ she’s Oliver Queen’s niece. He doesn’t believe it for a second, but if Batman is letting her lie and still be on the team, then she can’t really be that bad.

And then there’s Robin.

The _Boy Wonder_. Banned from saying anything about his home life; not his name, his birthday, he isn’t even allowed to say what color his eyes are, let alone show them. It kind of pisses Wally off sometimes. The way that the acrobat is allowed to keep everything a secret but be damned if anyone else does. Wally knows nothing about Robin’s parents or his outside life, and every time he questions the younger, he gets glared at and reminded that he’s _not allowed to tell_. But there the _he_ is, trying to get information out of Wally, about _his_ life, like it’s a crime to hide something from him. So yeah, it pisses Wally off that Robin is allowed to be as hypocritical as he pleases, while everyone else has to get their masks ripped off and have every little thing about them be examined and prodded, leaving no secrets behind.

He _hates_ it.

He _hates_ that he hates it.

Because why should Wally be mad at Robin for being a hypocrite when he’s doing the exact same thing? Why is he mad at his best friend for wanting to know about him? _Why can’t he just trust someone?_

Because he’s scared.

Wally is genuinely terrified that if he tells someone that he doesn’t feel safe in his own home, they won’t believe him, or they’ll tell Uncle Barry or the League, or they’ll hate him. Because who hates their own parents? Wally brought this on himself, it’s his fault. He’s the stupid freak, he’s the one who makes his dad hit him to keep his mother out of harm’s way. It’s his fault. And he knows that people will hate him for it.

_Why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you get help? Why would you let him hurt you? Why are you so stupid? Who’s going to think anything of you when they find out you’re just a weak, pathetic coward who can’t even stand up to his own father?_ No one will understand-

So he doesn’t tell anyone. He’s selfish and cowardly, but he doesn’t want to lose his friends, or the safety of Mt. Justice, his Aunt’s hugs, his family.

It’s fine. He can make do on his own; he’s been doing it for years. Just hide behind a mask and no one will ever know, _it’s fine-_

“Hey.”

Wally almost trips over his own feet. He looks up to see Megan walking beside him, a small smile on her face.

_“You know the team cares about you, right?”_ she asks in a telepathic message. Wally freezes where he stands. He’s staring at her, his eyes wide, color draining from his face.

‘W-what?” he’s not even sure if the words actually leave his mouth.

Oh God. Oh _God, ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod- she knows! How much does she know? How much did she hear? Did she just, did she just read my mind? Why would she do that? Oh God, whatamIsupposetosay?_

Megan’s looking at him worriedly, _“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, you just seemed so upset. I didn’t hear anything-”_ And then she’s reaching out towards him and Wally doesn’t know what to do.

“Don’ttouchme.” The words are barely a whisper. He needs to calm down, but Megan is still reaching for him, and oh God, What does she _know?!_

_“Wally.”_

“Stayoutofmyhead!” He shouts, and doesn’t even realize that he’s backing away from her. He can’t breathe.

“What the hell was that for?” Artemis snaps from somewhere to the side, but Wally’s not really listening. Megan looks horrified that she’s done something wrong.

_Look at what you did, idiot. She didn’t do anything wrong! Say something!_

“I-I…” but he can’t get the words out. _Apologize!_

“KF?” and then Robs walking towards him, but Wally doesn’t know what to do, he’s panicking.

‘I-I’m sorry.” He blurts. Rob’s almost in front of him, and Wally’s shaking. “I-I’llgoscoutahead.” He rushes out and then he’s gone. He just bolts. He runs because he can’t stand there any longer, he needs to move. He hears someone shout his name but he can’t stop, he _needs_ to run, to do _something_ other than stand there and see Megan look so hurt because of _him._

_Just one foot in front of the other, again and again, and again, and again. Just keep running._

He runs until his foot gets caught on a tree root, and then he’s skidding and rolling over the forest floor until he comes to a halt. He’s coughing and trying to remember the concept of _breathing_ , but this has never happened before. He doesn’t know how to react.

No one’s ever _known_ anything before.

So he’s panicking.

He realizes belatedly that he must be out of Megan’s range because there aren’t any voices in his head yelling at him to come back. He doesn’t touch his comm, they’re supposed to remain in radio silence unless it’s dire. Plus, he really doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Not while he’s freaking out. Instead he gets up and starts pacing, hoping it’ll help calm him down. It isn’t working. His head is spinning and his mind keeps not so gently reminding him of how much crap he’s gonna get in when this is all said and done.

He had snapped at Megan of all people; kind-hearted, innocent Megan. _God, I’m such a dick!_ _How am I supposed to face the team now?_ This is undoubtedly the worst thing he has ever done. Fighting with Artemis is fine, no one got hurt, well some feelings - mostly Wally’s - did, but that wasn’t the point. Yelling at Megan was completely uncalled for, and man, did Wally regret it. _She’s gonna hate me now._

Hell, the whole team’s gonna be disappointed with him, he had basically run off on everyone, and if they didn’t hate him yet, they were definitely mad at him.

_Idiot! Stupid, stupid idiot!_

Wally groans, pulling at his hair. _It’ll be fine, just explain to them-_

Explain what? How was he supposed to explain anything without explaining _everything?_

“Way to go, Wally, how are you gonna get out of this mess?” He mutters to himself. He takes a deep breath and notices that the pounding in his head is incredibly worse, plus his stomach won’t stop twisting around.

He should go back. He knows this, but he doesn’t want to face the team’s wrath.

He feels something land on his face then another on his nose. Wally blinks, and then the droplets start coming down with a faster speed and more in number.

Wally starts letting his frustrations out at the sky. “Seriously? Rain?! _Really?_ Is this _really_ necessary? Can this be any more of a stereotypical bad day?! ARG! _Give me a break, already!_ ” The sky responds with more rain, and Wally feels like punching something, but he knows it won’t do any good. After his little outburst, he ends up feeling crappier. Everything’s dizzy again, his breathing is ragged, and he feels like he’s going to be sick.

He should _really_ go back now.

He makes as if to head back but once he starts moving again his stomach lurches. He ends up throwing up into a bush and has to force himself to stop dry-heaving when nothing else comes up. He leans against a tree, trying in vain to stop his hands from shaking as he checks his emergency food compartments. Wally curses. He had forgotten to refill them since the last mission. He has _nothing_. The little bit that he had eaten before is gone, and Wally’s starting to regret not eating more of the leftovers before running off. It slowly dawns on him how utterly screwed he is.

He needs to get back to the team; Rob would know what to do. Robin always carries extra protein bars because Wally has this habit of forgetting to restock his own. So, if he can just find the team, he’ll be _fine_.

Wally knows that they’ll be plenty pissed at him when he gets back, but he also knows that he’s probably worse off is he doesn’t.

Wally manages to somehow hoist himself up to his feet, but has to cling onto the tree for dear life for about a minute because his legs won’t support his weight. His ears are ringing again and he feels like he’s going to faint, but he takes a deep breath and, using the tree, takes a jelly-legged step forward.

_This isn’t so bad, I got this._

And then he realizes he doesn’t actually remember which way he had run from. Wally pauses and slowly does a three-sixty, looking for anything he recognizes. Everything just looks like forest to him. He groans because the mini-circle didn’t help the dizziness at all.

Wally decides on a direction and forces himself to walk. He wipes the rain out of his eyes and notices that it’s actually getting quite dark out. He can’t see much because of how his vision is swimming and going in and out of focus, and the fact that the light’s disappearing isn’t helping.

He takes another shuffling step forward but his foot slips in the mud, and then Wally’s unexpectedly sliding down a steep hill. He tries franticly to grab at anything, but nothing’s giving purchase. He hits a fallen tree and tumbles over it, rolling and bouncing the rest of the way down. He lands on his side, his head smashing against the ground. There’s a sickening snapping noise. Pain shoots up Wally’s arm, straight to his pounding skull, making him gasp out a scream.

He doesn’t even realize he blacks out.

 

 

~~~

 

 

By the time consciousness rolls around, it’s already pitch black out. Wally’s still laying on his side, covered in mud, the rain soaking into his uniform. It takes him a minute to comprehend that he’s actually awake. He doesn’t really remember falling asleep, nor does he know how long he was apparently out for.

He tries moving his arms to sit up, but ends up biting his tongue to keep from screaming. Then he remembers the pain from earlier. He doesn’t want to see the arm underneath his body, but he knows that he needs to reset it if it’s broken. He manages to roll over and he’s pretty sure his lip is bleeding from the amount of pressure he had just put on it with his teeth. He ignores it in favor of checking his arm.

It had already healed incorrectly, probably while he was unconscious.

Wally has to hold back a whine. _Great, just_ freaking _great. What the hell am I supposed to do now?_

_Contact the team_.

He reaches for his comm, but it’s not there. Wally starts freaking out. He lost his comm, probably at some point during the fall. Wally groans. He now has no way of getting into contact with anyone, his arm’s broken, his head is a spinning mess, he probably has a concussion, plus he has no food whatsoever. He’s screwed.

If he can last until the team finds him, everything will be okay, they’ll just be super pissed at him, but he’ll live. Wally’s finding it difficult to keep his eyes open. He vaguely remembers learning about something to do with sleep and concussions, but he can’t remember all of it right now. Either way, sleep sounds good.

He ends up blacking out again, thinking about whether or not he left a note on the table for his parents before he left.


	5. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS for... creepy bad guy... and i guess it's non-con but I SWEAR NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS! The guy's just a freak.... but yeah, BE WARNED~!
> 
> Oh, so I was re-reading the tags for this, and Holy Damn, they make this story sound reeaaall awful don't they? Lol I swear half of them are there because I wanted to be cautious... and then there're some that probably SHOULD be added, and they most likely will when the time comes... I don't wanna scare all of you away just yet, eh? 
> 
> But yeah, amazing to get another update from me this soon~ I was home sick so I thought, what the hell... 
> 
> So enjoy~!
> 
> And again KUDOS to Editor_K, my amazing life savor. ^u^

The first thing he notices is that he’s cold. It’s also dark and everything feels so _slow_.

Then there are hands on him.

Wally’s eyes snap open, or at least he tries to perform said task, but instead, everything stays dark. He can’t open his eyes. He feels his head roll as his body is lifted up into what he _thinks_ is a sitting position. Vertigo washes over him and he can’t help but groan out in displeasure.

The hands chuckle. Or the body the hands are attached to chuckles. Wally doesn’t really care. All he knows is that his back is pressed up against something, probably a tree, and the hands are still moving over him.

His mind is groggy. Everything feels so distant, like he’s floating in space. Wally doesn’t know who it is that has their hands on him, or if they’re even real. Everything’s so far away, just out of his reach. Almost dreamlike. His mind is being pulled back under, back into the numbness, and it feels comforting in a way. _Just sleep for awhile._

The hands are shaking him by his shoulders now, and Wally groans again when the back of his head hits the tree-thing. The numbness is fading quicker now, as his mind is being drawn back into reality. He tries grasping on to the quiet, the peace. But it’s too late. The serenity is almost gone.

“Hey.” it takes a moment for him to realize the voice is directed at him. “Kid.” there’s a small slap on his cheek and Wally tries shifting away, but his body is too drowsy with sleep to accomplish much more than miniscule movements. “Open your eyes, kid.” the voice instructs and Wally vaguely comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t actually recall ever hearing this voice before. Then there’s something cool and metallic pressed up against his cheek. “I _said_ open your eyes.” the metal presses harder into Wally’s skin until his cheek is stinging and he feels something warm and wet trickle down onto his lip.

Wally groggily opens his eyes, not wanting to make the voice angrier.

_Behave and the punishment won’t be as bad. Just behave._

He has to tilt his head up some to be able to see the voice’s owner. For some reason he expected it to be someone he knew, but instead he doesn’t recognize him - the man. The young man? Older? Wally isn’t sure. Everything’s confusing and blurry, his vision is swimming. It’s still dark out, he realizes. And raining. God, he’s really starting to hate the rain.

“That’s a good boy.” the voice is laced with… something, Wally isn’t sure what, though. His mind is too befuddled to try to place it, but by the way the man kneeling in front of him is looking down at him, Wally figures, he doesn’t want to know. “You’re one of them freaks ain’t cha?” Wally suddenly gets the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. He doesn’t like how this voice - no it’s a man now. He doesn’t like the look the man is giving him or what the words are implying. But the man just pets Wally’s cheek. And it would almost seem soothing, if the man wasn’t digging his thumb into where he had previously cut Wally’s skin. For some reason that makes Wally stay put, and he doesn’t know why. _Behave._ Somewhere in his hazy mind he knows he should run, or fight, or just do _something_ , but the thought gets lost amongst all of the other muddled thoughts running though his head. “I could have lots of fun with you.” the man is whispering now, and Wally involuntarily shivers out of fear. _Don’t move. Just behave._

He is suddenly very aware of how the man’s hands are roaming up and down his body. Then they’re sliding down his arms, and Wally lets out a startled cry as the man’s hand just barely grazes his broken arm. There’s a pause. Wally tries to will the tears in his eyes not to fall and the dancing spots in his vision to fade. _Don’t make a sound. Behave._

“So tell me, kid.” And the man’s gripping Wally’s arm hard enough for him to have trouble catching his breath through the flashes of pain. “What the hell do ya think you’re doing out here all alone?” The words are dark and Wally’s stomach is twisting up again as the man’s grip tightens. _Don’t make a sound_. “A pretty boy like you could get yourself hurt wandering around the woods all alone.” And then the man’s grinning something feral and Wally knows he needs to get out of here _right now_ , but he can’t make his limbs respond. “You must be cold. Why don’t I take you somewhere warm and safe?” The man’s hand is on his chest-

That does it for Wally. He starts trying to push the man away from him but his arms are too uncoordinated, his legs feel like lead. The panic is only making his efforts weak and futile. The man easily pins him back to the tree. Wally doesn’t stop his hopeless struggling until the man pulls his broken arm and twists. Wally can’t help it, he screams. He wants to continue fighting even through the pain that’s steadily numbing his mind, but the cool metal’s back again, pressing on his face in a warning. It’s a knife, he realizes dully.

“Shh. You best keep quiet, boy.” The man whispers into his ear as he slowly drags the knife down to Wally’s throat. Wally just tries to even his breathing. _Listen to him, don’t make a sound. Just behave_. “That’s a good boy.” The knife comes back up to rest just below his left eye. The point digs in slightly, not enough to break the skin, but enough to give Wally the hint not to move. “What’s your name, kid-” Then there’s pain where the knife used to be pressing on his skin and Wally feels blood drip down his cheek. And for a split second, Wally thinks that the man is going to stab him. _Is_ stabbing him. But the knife is missing.

Wally blinks as the man starts swearing, clutching his hand to his chest. It’s the same one that had held the knife. But it now looks like the knife was sticking out of it. No. Not a knife. It’s something else. Wally blinks again when something flies out of the darkness from the corner of his vision and tackles the man to the ground. The man seems to struggle for a moment before going limp. A small figure stands up from beside the man and turns towards Wally. It’s too dark to make out the figure’s face. He starts walking towards Wally who’s still stuck trying to wrap his head around what had just happened.

He tries backing away, but his limbs won’t work, and his head is spinning, and what’s going on, and _is the man dead?_ Logically, he knows that the figure isn’t going to harm him, but the logical part of his brain is getting obscured by the rising panic that’s blooming in his chest. Instead, he tries getting away from the figure, his feet sliding in the mud and his ears pounding in time with his increasing heartbeat.

The figure’s kneeling in front of him before Wally can even grasp the fact that he had moved. His hands are trying to catch onto Wally’s shoulders, but that’s what the man had been doing before, and Wally hadn’t liked where that had lead to, so he starts struggling automatically. The figure’s quick though, and has his wrists snatched before Wally can think to shove him away. Wally cries out in pain. Then the hands are gone and someone’s swearing.

“Jesus, KF. What the hell happened? Are you okay?” The voice is high-pitched and uncharacteristically nervous. Wally knows that voice. Logically, he knows who this person is, and knows that he’s a friend and would never try to hurt him, but for some reason his head isn’t wrapping itself around that fact. So instead, he inches himself away until his back hits another tree. He stares at the man who’s still lying on the ground, unmoving. _Is he dead?_ “KF?”

Wally finds he can’t really respond. The air doesn’t seem to be reaching his lungs for him to be able to get the words out. _He was going to kill me. Or worse, he was going to-_

“KF.”

_And I couldn’t move or stop him or-_

“ _KF._ ”

_Oh God, he could’ve-_

“Wally.”

It’s just a whisper but it makes him blink and just _stop_.

“Look at me.” It’s still just barely above a whisper, but Wally finds himself slowly looking up to meet the covered eyes of the person kneeling in front of him. His friend. _Rob_. “You need to calm down.” Wally blinks. He hadn’t really noticed how rapid his breathing had become, or that he had somehow curled up into a little ball, cradling his arm to his chest. The realization does nothing but make his breathing pick up further. “Hey,” Robin’s reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder but stops when Wally flinches away. He frowns but lowers his hand, and Wally has the sudden urge to beg for forgiveness. _Don’t make him mad._

“I’msorry.” He ends up blurting. _Don’t hurt me_. He doesn’t know why he thought that. _Why would Rob hurt me?_ His head’s spinning too much for anything to make sense. “I’msorry. I’m sorry. Don’t. I’msorryjust - don’t, don’t,” He can’t think straight. The words just keep getting jumbled together. “I’msorryI - I can’t. I can’t. Idon’t. I’msorrysorrysorry-” Then there are hands on his shoulders and Wally just wants to scream.

“Breathe.” It’s an order and Wally is good at following orders - _has_ to follow orders. But why is this one so _hard?_ “Dude, that’s not what I meant.” And he must be hyperventilating again because Rob’s squeezing his shoulders and making him look up at him. “Ok, try this. Put your head between your knees and take deep breaths.” Wally does as he’s told and is somewhat grateful when Rob removes his hands from his shoulders. “Just breathe.” Rob instructs.

It takes a lot longer than Wally would’ve liked. His breathing does slow down after what seems like _forever_ , but it leaves him feeling lightheaded, lethargic and just plain _drained_.

“So you mind telling me what got you so freaked out?” Rob asks once Wally’s breathing is at a somewhat normal pace. Wally can’t seem to get his eyes to focus on the younger so he gives up and closes them. _Just breathe_.

“I don’t- I mean I-” he swallows and tries again. “I don’t really- he was just- I don’t-” his voice is shaking and the words aren’t coming out the way he wants them to and he _hates_ this. “I don’t- Idon’twanttotalkaboutit.”

“Kid-”

“I just-” but Wally doesn’t know what to say so he gives up with a frustrated groan. He can’t focus long enough to form coherent sentences. His head is too busy pounding in tune with the agony in his arm. The pain is making him dizzy and does nothing to help the nausea that’s curling in his stomach. He doesn’t even realize that he’s rubbing at his temple with his good hand until his hand is being dragged away from his face. Wally blinks blearily up at Rob who’s looking down at him with either annoyance or concern. His face is too much of a blur for Wally to be sure of which it is.  

“When did you hit your head?” Rob asks, turning Wally’s head this way and that, looking for any more damage. The motions make Wally want to throw up again, so he squeezes his eyes closed and shrugs. Or attempts a shrug. It’s more of an awkward half-shrug because his broken arm just hurts too much to even try a successful shrug. But it hopefully gets the point across.

“I dunno.” Then he tries thinking it over. “Probably when I fell. But I don’t think it actually hurt that much at the time.” He tries shrugging again.

“And I doubt that’s a good thing.” And Wally’s pretty sure he can hear the frown in the younger’s voice. Rob’s fingers are putting small amounts of pressure on different parts of his forehead. Wally hisses through his teeth and tries pulling away when a finger causes a spike of pain to shoot through his head. “You’re still bleeding.” Rob says simply. “How long ago did you hit your head?”

“I think-” he pauses to groan again when Rob puts pressure back on the same spot as the last time. He tries unsuccessfully to swat the acrobat’s hands away but Rob just puts more pressure on his head and tells him to stop. Wally whines but stops trying to pull away. He swallows. “I think it was still light out.” His voice is slurred slightly and everything’s starting to feel numb and heavy again.

Rob says something but it’s lost on him. A comforting numbness is starting to coat Wally’s mind, and it’s making it hard to focus on his words. Instead, the younger’s voice is just a small buzz in Wally’s ears, easily drowned out by the calm that’s spreading over him. He’s so tired. The calm is numbing the pain, and Wally wants nothing more than to sink into it and just _sleep._

Someone’s talking to him. He doesn’t understand what they’re saying but he knows he wants them to stop. The buzz in his ears is disrupting the peace and quiet. He tries to ignore it but the noise seems to get louder, it’s trying to pull him back out. But he doesn’t want to leave. Why can’t the voice understand that? It’s so much better here. It’s warm and welcoming and free.

But the voice is persistent and it’s taking Wally by force. It asks him a question but he doesn’t quite catch it. He hums in response, hoping that if can appease it, the voice will let him sleep.

“…your eyes.”

Wally frowns. What about his eyes?

“Open your eyes.” The voice seems stressed. Or worried. Or sad, angry, annoyed, Wally doesn’t really know. The words aren’t really reaching him. Why would he want to open his eyes? He can’t sleep with his eyes open. Why is the voice asking such silly questions?

“KF, you need to open your eyes.” Why is the voice so bossy?

“How long has he been out of it?” There’re new voices. Great. Why can’t they just let him sleep?

“Ten, fifteen minutes, give or take.” This one’s the closer voice, the bossy one. There’s a hand putting pressure on his forehead and it hurts, but Wally finds he can’t move away. His body’s too heavy. Everything feels like it’s being held down by weights. There’s a snapping sound next to his ear and honestly, it’s an irritating noise, and it makes Wally groan and try to turn away. Wally blinks his eyes open to glare at the person who’s refusing to let him sleep. “There you are.”

“Welcome back Kid-Klutz.” Wally turns his head slightly to glare at the person standing to the right of him. The motion makes him dizzy though, so he gives up half-way through and instead, closes his eyes.

“Hey, don’t do that.” His shoulder’s being shaken again and it’s shooting pain up into his skull.

“Stop…” He groans, trying to unsuccessfully push the person away.

“Open your eyes then.” Wally frowns. Why does everyone want him to open his eyes?

“Why?” Wally manages to mumble out.

“So Aqualad can yell at you for being an idiot.”

“… Kay.” Wally reluctantly opens his eyes before thinking over what was just said to him. He doesn’t really want to be yelled at. And why do his eyes need to be open for that? The person in front of him chuckles at his response though, and it distracts Wally from his earlier thoughts. He just stares at the familiar face, frowning. It takes him a moment to remember who it is. “Oh. Hey, Rob.”

Rob pauses and frowns slightly. “… Hey, Wally.”

“When’d you get here?” Wally asks happily. Rob’s frown grows.

“Uh-”

“Wait, no. You were here. Right? Yeah.” Wally pauses and looks over at the rest of the team, finally noticing them. “They weren’t here though. No. Wait,” He tries thinking it over. “No? No. You guys weren’t here. ‘Cause it was just me and Rob, and that guy. And wait. Where is that guy? He was a jerk, I don’t like him. My head hurts. Can we go home now?” Wally can’t stop talking. Even to his own ears the words are slurred and probably mumbled.

“Robin.”Aqualad’s voice sounds worried, which upsets Wally. _Stop worrying everyone._

“How hard did he hit his head?” Connor asks, looking confused.

“I don’t really know.” Rob says shaking his head.

“He’s really pale.”

“Hey Supes, can you like break my arm for me?” Wally asks without thinking and Connor’s face screws up in a half-frown half just plain disturbed.

“No.”

“Guys,” Megan interrupts. Wally suddenly feels guilty. _She’s going to hate me_. But he can’t remember why he knows that.

“We’ve got company.” Artemis says as she draws her bow. 

Robin tenses in front of Wally and the distinct sound of leaves rustling reaches them.

“AL.” Rob barely finishes speaking before Aqualad is on the other side of Wally. “Watch his arm.” The two of them shimmy their arms under each of Wally’s. “Sorry, KF.”

“For what-” Wally’s question is cut off when Rob and Aqualad haul him up onto his feet. All of the air in his lungs seems to disappear. Wally isn’t even sure if he had time to scream before he is standing and gasping for air. His legs feel like jelly but he manages to put the majority of his weight on his already shaking limbs.

“Robin-”

“I got him.” Rob replies and Aqualad lets go of Wally to get his water-bearers out. “Okay, come on, KF.” He says as he tries shuffling Wally backwards. People with guns start coming out of the woods from all around them and Wally’s pretty sure he hears Rob swear.

“You know, you’re like seriously short.” Wally says shakily. His vision is already graying around the edges and he can’t help but lean more of his weight onto Rob.

“Dude, just because you have a possible concussion, does not mean that I won’t kick your ass.” Rob says more worried than annoyed. Wally chuckles but regrets it when it makes his head pound.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Wally slurs.

“Uh, how about, no?” Rob sounds desperate. “Just hang on, okay?”

Wally tries to nod but the world tips sideways and then he feels like he’s falling. He mumbles out an apology before his legs give out.

He hears someone shout his name but before he can say anything, everything goes black.


	6. A Little Half Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So It's been quite a while since I've posted, eh? I will confess that this chapter was being an awful piece of work for the better part of the last three months. Plus I had some personal crap come up that I had to deal with, but I recently got motivated to continue this. So here it is.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS~~ referenced/implied abuse, resetting of bones (though minor seeing as how I've never broken a bone so I don't ACTUALLY know what they do in this type of situation so bare with me) and concussed!Wally~!
> 
> I took my experience from like the one time I had a concussion and stuck it on Wally. So if it doesn't seem that accurate, sue me. Once again, beautiful Editor K helped beta this for me, so any mistakes are my own. I hope you enjoy~!

 

_“Hi, sweetie, can you hand me the pasta?”_

_Her smile is genuine as she pauses, stirring the sauce, to look over her shoulder at him. It’s the type of smile that makes him want to smile back. So he does. And it comes naturally._

_Wally scoots himself off of the chair to help his mother with dinner. He’s not yet old enough to cook, only just started school, but his mother still lets him help – small, simple stuff. Things that make him feel included._

_He drags a chair over to the pantry and carefully climbs on top to stand. He can feel his mother’s eyes on him, knows that she’s prepared to catch him if he falls. But he won’t fall. He wants to be treated like he’s older and make his mother proud. So he’s very careful. Wally’s tall enough now that he doesn’t need to stand on his tip toes to reach the higher shelves and it puts a smile on his face. He won’t be the smallest at school anymore. His mother says that if he keeps growing like this, he’ll soon be taller than his father. Wally hopes his dad won’t mind._

_He grabs the box of dried pasta noodles and carefully gets down off of the chair. He holds the box tightly between his small fingers as he turns back to his mother. He pauses and bites his lip. His mother tilts her head curiously at him and he finds he can’t stop the nervous smile that appears on his face._

_“Can I pour it in, mommy?” Wally’s voice is small and uncertain as he looks up expectantly at his mother. She just smiles warmly at him and nods. Wally beams as he pushes the chair over to the stovetop._

_“Be careful.” His mother warns as Wally climbs up onto the chair. “Don’t touch the pot.” Wally nods enthusiastically, a smile still etched on his face as he opens the pasta box. He pours the noodles into the boiling water, making sure all of them land in the pot, then turns to look at his mother. She smiles and bends down to kiss Wally on the temple. “Want to help me set the table?”_

_“Sure!” Wally chirps happily as he climbs off of the chair. He drags the chair back over to the table so it won’t be in his mother’s way before getting the silverware. As he’s setting the table, his father comes home. “Daddy’s home!” Wally calls as his father walks in through the dining room. His father grunts his acknowledgement towards his son as he heads into the kitchen, Wally following close behind._

_“Dinner’s just about ready, dear.” Wally’s mother says turning around to great her husband with a smile. Wally watches as his father moves past his mother without a glance and starts rooting through a cupboard. He watches as his mother’s smile turns weird. Fake. Wally blinks and looks back to his father who is crouched down, busy shoving things around in the bottom cupboard. Wally doesn’t know what his father is looking for, but he knows it must be important if it’s in the cupboard Wally’s ‘not allowed to touch’._

_“Where is it?” His father growls._

_“You finished it yesterday, remember, dear?” Wally’s mother answers softly. Her eyes are focused on her husband as he gets up from his crouch and slams the cupboard door shut. Wally flinches involuntarily, not expecting the sudden movement. He sees his mother glance at him, but he’s stuck staring at his father’s back as he turns and opens the fridge._

_“Sweetie,” His mother says, getting Wally’s attention. “Why don’t you go wash your hands, hmm?” She says calmly, nodding her head towards the bathroom down the hall, the weird smile still on her face. Wally glances at his father’s back before he heads for the bathroom without a word._

_From the bathroom he can still hear his parents, but it’s all just mumbled together. He can’t make anything out. After washing his hands, Wally cautiously makes his way back to the kitchen, still nervous about before. But when he gets there, his mother is smiling normally and serving dinner. He feels himself relax._

_“How much do you want, sweetie?” She asks, showing a bowl to Wally. “Is that enough?” Wally nods. She hands him the bowl, kisses the top of his head, and smiles._

_Dinner is quiet, which isn’t unusual when Wally’s father comes home in a mood like he had this evening. Wally doesn’t think anything of it. His mother has told him time and time again that sometimes his father’s work is stressful, so every once in a while his father is just in a bad mood when he comes home from work. It’s nothing to be scared of. And if his father and mother fight, it’s because sometimes people who love each other fight when they’re stressed. It’s perfectly normal. So Wally isn’t worried. His mother is still smiling, so everything’s okay._

_When dinner is done, Wally’s dad leaves to buy some things from the store. Wally doesn’t think anything of it, it seemed normal enough, but he does notice his mother’s frown. He helps with the dishes – he’s really fast at drying things, his mother says it’ll come in handy when he’s older and has a job. Wally doesn’t really agree. He wants to be like the Flash, so he doesn’t really need to be good at drying dishes. His mother just says she bets the Flash would be jealous at how fast Wally can dry them. Wally wonders if it’s true. He doesn’t really want the Flash to be jealous of him. His mother just kisses him on the head and tells him she loves him._

_His mother tries to send him up to bed before his father gets home, but Wally protests. He wants to say goodnight to his father. His mother gets that weird fake smile again and kisses Wally on the forehead. She promises him that his father will come upstairs to say goodnight when he gets home. Wally relents after getting his mother to promise to let him help make breakfast in the morning. He really wants to learn how people on TV can flip pancakes in a frying pan like they do._

_Wally brushes his teeth before getting ready for bed and crawls under his covers. He’s almost asleep when he hears the car pull up front, signalling his father’s return. He hears the front door open and slam shut downstairs. He sits up in bed. He hears his parents talking but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t make out what they’re saying. His father sounds mad, though._

_There’s a crashing sound and Wally curls back up under the covers, pulling the blanket over his head. The noise coming from downstairs stops after a couple minutes and everything goes quiet. After a while, Wally hears his bedroom door open. He pokes his head out from under the covers to see his mother standing in the doorway._

_He sits up in bed as she comes in. Even with the faint glow from his Flash night-light, Wally can’t really make out his mother’s face. She sits on the edge of his bed and pulls him into a hug._

_“Mommy...?” Wally asks hesitantly. His mother just squeezes him closer for a moment before letting go._

_“Daddy can’t come up to say goodnight right now, so he told me to, okay, sweetie?” She ruffles his hair and kisses his nose. “Now, under the covers.” Wally smiles and complies, his mother tucking him in. “I love you, sweetie.” She says softly as she bends down to kiss his forehead. He feels something wet land on his cheek but doesn’t mention it._

_“Love you too, mommy.”_

“KF.”

_He watches as his mother gets up and leaves his room, but pauses in the doorway to look back at him-_

“...Wake up.”

_The hallway light illuminates half of her face and Wally can see the tears falling down her cheeks-_

“Lay him down.”

_They slide down past her bruised eye, and Wally wants to ask what happened. But he can’t find his voice-_

“I think he’s cold.”

“The shaking might have given that away.”

“He’s got a fever.”

_She smiles at him – sad and worried and fake and strained and empty and it scares him because it’s not one of her genuine smiles full of love - and closes the door-_

“NO!”

Wally sits up suddenly, eyes open wide. He’s gasping for air, can barely breathe. His heart is hammering away inside of his chest and his ears are ringing. He can’t see anything, everything’s too bright, but he needs to find his mom. He needs to know she’s okay.

“Where-” he can’t _see_. Why can’t he see? He _needs to see_.

“Hey, take it easy.” Someone has a hold of his shoulders but Wally isn’t really sure who. “Lay down, there you go.” They’re guiding him back down-

“No, Ihavetogo.” He tries shoving the person away. Needs to find his mother, has to protect her. They hold him down. “Lemmego... lemme... lemme go...”

“Just relax. That’s it, just breathe.” The light’s starting to hurt his eyes, so Wally closes them. He feels tired all of a sudden.

“Where...” He gives up asking the question, having lost the energy to form the words.

“You’re on the Bio-ship. Do you remember what happened?” Bio-ship? Why was he on the Bio-ship? He was just at home.

“Are y’sure?” He asks. He blinks his eyes open to see if the light still hurts. When it very much does, he groans and tries to cover his eyes with his hands. “Me’nie.”

“What?” someone pulls his hands away from his face, and Wally notices for the first time that his arm really _hurts_.

“’S m’rm brok’n?” He asks as he tries to sit up again. Hands push him down by his shoulders and Wally frowns.

“Was - Well, kind of is - and stop mumbling.” Fingers start poking at his head and Wally tries turning away.

“How does your head feel?”

“Uh...” Wally frowns again and wonders briefly if he were to frown hard enough would it stay permanently? Then he thinks of how Roy frowns all the time so it must be true.

“He’s laughing. Why is he laughing?” A new voice sounds disturbed but Wally doesn’t really know why. The voice is farther away, so Wally doesn’t think it matters.

“Roy frowns’lot” Wally grins and opens his eyes again. He grins harder when he sees Robin and Kaldur standing by him. “I can see!” He says happily and doesn’t understand why Rob just gives him this weird look. “What?”

Robin shakes his head. “Nothing.” He says then turns to look over his shoulder. “Miss M. How far are we out?”

“Fifteen minutes.” Someone replies.

“Where’re we goin’?” Wally asks as he tries to sit up again. “Adventure?” He wonders suddenly if he’s supposed to be somewhere right now. Wasn’t he just looking for someone?

“Mount Justice, and stop that.” Robin gently shoves Wally back down. He’s lying on what appears to be a bed. On the Bio-ship.

“Since when are there beds?” He asks but before anyone can answer he’s trying to sit back up and get off of the bed. “What about the mission? We can’t just leave! WegottagobackotherwiseBatmanwillgetmadatusandheshouldn’tfrownsomuch. He’llturnintoRoyandthat’llsuck. Promise me you won’t let him frown so much. Wegottagobackplease. Can we gobacknowplease?”

“Dude, chill out!” Robin is trying to push Wally back down but Rob’s not _listening_.

“No! We gotta go back! We gotta find the base and that guy. Whathappenedtothatguy??”

“It’s fine, Wally. Everything’s been taken care of. We found the place, destroyed their research, and recovered the stolen tech. Everything’s fine.” Robin says the words slowly, as if talking to a child. Wally just stares at him uncomprehending. He blinks a couple of times then frowns.

“Kid-Flash.” Kaldur sounds uncertain, which is odd because Aqualad is always sure of everything and is always calm and collected. Wally looks at him but can’t make out what his expression is saying besides ‘blank mask’, which isn’t really an expression, so Wally’s a bit lost.

He frowns a bit more and looks around the Bio-ship. He can’t see much because Rob and Kaldur are both in the way, but he can see Conner staring at him with a disturbed-sort-of-confused frown and sitting beside a window. Outside is black with patches of tiny glowing lights.

“Are we in space?” Wally asks suddenly looking back at Robin for an answer. The Boy Wonder tilts his head at him and seems to raise an eyebrow.

“Uh, no...?” He says slowly. “Why would you think that?” Wally frowns. He doesn’t remember what he thought. After a moment, Wally notices something is wrong with Robin.

“Your cape’s missing.” Wally jabs a finger at the teen’s shoulder where the cape would normally sit.

“It’s on your lap.” Wally blinks then looks down at himself. The cape is in fact bunched up on his lap. It must have been placed over him while he was lying down.

“Oh. When...” Wally trails off, distracted by the stark difference between the yellow side of the cape and the black side. Through his glove, Wally can feel the heat coming off of the makeshift blanket. “Warm...” He murmurs, his eyes are fixated on the cloth in his hand. His other arm he notices for the first time is pulled up into a sling. Huh. So that’s why it felt weird to move.

The next thing he knows, Uncle Barry’s in front of him, his face contorted into a worried frown.

Wally jumps and flinches away, making Uncle Barry frown harder.

“What?” He stutters out.

“I asked you if you were okay.” Uncle Barry says worriedly. Wally stares at him and wants to point out that he didn’t hear anyone ask him anything, but Uncle Barry reaches out his hand to press against Wally’s forehead and he gets distracted by the warmth coming off of his uncle’s hand. His uncle frowns, eyebrows knitting together, and it reminds Wally of when he first got his powers. He woke up in the hospital with Uncle Barry staring down at him with almost the exact same expression that he was wearing now.

Wally’s pulled out of his thoughts by Uncle Barry suddenly hefting him up and carrying him out of the Bio-Ship bridal style. Wally almost remarks on the fact that he doesn’t need to be carried but ends up groaning when the world seems to tilt sideways instead. His arm gives a sharp throb of pain at the sudden movement and he tries not to whimper.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, eyes closed in an attempt to ward off the nausea.

“What for?” His uncle asks softly.

“I think I fucked up my arm.” He slurs. Uncle Barry makes a noise of disapproval at the back of his throat and pulls Wally tighter towards himself.

“Language.” He scolds, but there isn’t any real heat in the words. “You’ll be fine, kiddo.” He adds, his voice soft again.

They seem to reach their destination and Uncle Barry carefully lowers him onto what feels like a bed. Wally cautiously opens his eyes and is pleasantly surprised that the world isn’t spinning around his head. They’re in the Med-Bay. Wally would be lying if he said he hasn’t been stuck in one of the beds here before due to an injury while on a mission.

Uncle Barry grabs some supplies off to the side before pulling up a chair and sitting beside the bed Wally was currently occupying. Wally slowly sits up on the bed so his uncle can remove the bandages.

“So you mind telling me what happened?” He asks as he pulls the bandages away from Wally’s head.

“I fell?” Wally supplies and winces slightly at the look his uncle gives him. Uncle Barry starts dabbing at the injury with a wet piece of gauze, making Wally lean away when it stings from the rubbing alcohol.

“Oh yeah?” Uncle Barry drawls. “How’d you manage that?” He asks as he carefully applies new bandages to Wally’s head then goes about cleaning up his cheek. Wally thinks for a second, trying to remember how he got hit in the head in the first place. Was it when he fell the first time or the second time? Wasn’t there three times?

“Um... By accident?” Wally’s voice isn’t nervously pitching higher at all. It’s _not._ He probably just has a fever and it’s making him sound weird. Yeah, that’s it.

Uncle Barry gives him this glare, setting the used gauze on the side table. “You ran off on your team.” He says bluntly. Wally cringes at the disapproval pouring out of the words. Wally had forgotten about that part. He knows he had screwed up but when his uncle puts it like _that_ \- “Any explanation as to why you ran off on your team, way past the maximum distance for M’gann’s mind-link, and threw away your comm-link without so much as a warning?” Wally swallows. _So Uncle B’s mad_.

“Sorry?” He squeaks in the most mature superhero fashion possible – like a little freaking kid. _God._ “But I didn’t throw away my comm! I lost it. I was going to head back but I tripped and fell down this slope and I must’ve lost my comm on the way and then I kinda blacked out and... yeah...” He trails off, avoiding eye contact.

Uncle Barry sighs and drags a hand through his hair before getting up and giving Wally a look. It’s a mix between disapproving and nervous worry. Wally feels panic and guilt swirl around in his stomach and creep up his throat. He quickly swallows it down and tries to subdue it before the panic can show on his face. He’s already worrying his uncle enough as it is, he doesn’t need to make things worse by looking like a scared little kid.

“Did something happen to make you run?” He asks warily. Wally blinks up at him dumbfounded. What is he supposed to say to that? _‘Yeah, Megan might have found out about my home life - which by the way is just_ perfect _in case you were wondering – so I ran because I didn’t know what else to do. Sorry.’_

Because that would go over so well.

Instead, Wally just shakes his head and looks down at his lap, rubbing his non-slinged hand over his face. “I just over-reacted over nothing and acted like an idiot.” He says after a moment. Uncle Barry sighs again and sits back down to be eye level with Wally.

“It’s not like you to act like that.” He says calmly, pulling Wally’s hand away from his face. “The Team said something about you seeming off the whole day. Is everything alright?” It takes everything Wally has not to let the terror show on his face. Uncle Barry looks at him expectantly and Wally finds himself staring blankly back. _Think of something, you idiot!_

“I’m sorry.” He blurts and immediately regrets it. Uncle Barry’s eyebrows knit together again and Wally very nearly slams his head against the wall. _Stupid idiot!_ Wally’s really starting to hate the fact that his brain to mouth communication isn’t working so well right now. He _really_ hates head injuries.

“Kiddo, if something’s wrong, you can talk to me. You know that.” Wally wants to cringe at his uncle’s words because he knows they won’t stay true forever.

“Promise me you won’t get mad?” He finds himself saying, voice uncertain. Barry gives a slow nod and Wally would give anything for it to be true. “I may have... um... done a little... experiment...?” Wally swallows when all his uncle gives him is this confused look. “I uh... I wanted to see how long I could go without eating and then there was the mission and I haven’t really eaten since like Friday afternoon whichIknowisreallybadjustdon’thatemeplease.” He pushes out as fast as he can, his words practically tripping over themselves to leave his mouth. He knows he very deliberately left out the fact that his dad had started this whole mess, but it wasn’t _really_ his dad’s fault that he had to go and be a petulant child about it and just chose to not eat. Besides, Uncle Barry doesn’t need to know any of that.

Uncle Barry for his part just stares at him, and for a second Wally is afraid that he broke his uncle and mentor but then Uncle Barry’s eye twitches.

“You _what?!_ ” Uncle Barry blurts out exasperatedly. Wally opens his mouth but is cut off by his uncle again. “Since _Friday?!_ Wally, that’s over fifty hours ago! _What were you thinking!?_ ” Suddenly his uncle is on his feet again. “ _Fifty_ hours, _Christ_ , Wally – stay here!” He orders, one hand running through his hair and the other waving frantically in Wally’s direction, before he’s gone.

Wally opens his mouth then closes it again. He blinks at the spot that his uncle had just occupied. _That went well_.

Before Wally even has time to grasp at the fact that his uncle had just come as close to swearing as Wally has ever heard, his uncle’s back again with a huge armload of food. He piles it on top of the side table before turning back to his nephew. Wally just watches in bewilderment as a bag of crackers falls from the pile and lands on the floor.

“Lay down.” Wally just blinks at him making Uncle Barry sigh. “Wally lay down so I can fix your arm.” Wally continues to blink at him until realisation dawns on him.

“Oh yeah, right.” He lies back down after Uncle Barry removes the sling and can’t stop himself from glancing at his uncle nervously. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how mad are you at me?” He asks quietly. Barry doesn’t respond, he just goes over to the medicine cabinet and starts rooting in it for something. After finding what he was looking for he comes back and sits back in the chair beside the bed. Wally glances at the needle in his uncle’s hand warily.

“It’ll help a little with the pain.” He says simply, seeing Wally eyeing the needle. Wally bites his lip as Uncle Barry injects the clear liquid into Wally’s arm. The pain in his arm seems to diminish slightly.

“So, I take it, around a six?” Wally asks hopefully. Uncle Barry glares at him slightly before taking off his belt and folding it in half.

“Eight. Bite this.” Wally grimaces before taking the strap of leather and sticking it between his teeth. Uncle Barry grasps Wally’s arm with both hands before looking back at his nephew. Even though Wally knows his uncle is close to _pissed_ at him right now, he also knows that his uncle hates it when Wally’s bones don’t set right because he hates having to hurt Wally to fix them. Wally can see it in his eyes, as Uncle Barry looks at him, jaw clenched and eyes searching for permission to go ahead. Wally gives the tiniest of nods before looking away. “On the count of three, one, two-”

Wally’s breath catches in his throat as he feels his arm crack again. His teeth clench down on the leather belt and his eyes squeeze shut as pain-filled tears fill them. He tries to stay as still and as silent as possible. Only a small strangled sound makes it up his throat. At least being used to sudden pain has made it somewhat easier to mask any noises he makes. _That’s a great thought_.

Uncle Barry is as fast and gentle as possible as he sets Wally’s arm and puts it into a splint. Wally pulls the belt out of his mouth and takes an unsteady breath. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling, willing the gray along the edges of his vision to disappear. Uncle Barry’s face appears above him and Wally feels a hysterical laughter bubble up his throat. By the look his uncle is giving him, Wally thinks that his uncle is having a very hard time deciding whether or not he’s mad at Wally or worried for his well-being.

“Can you sit up?” he asks, one hand brushing the hair out of Wally’s eyes.

“Sure.” Wally pushes himself up and Uncle Barry readjusts the pillows behind him so he can lean back against them. “So, an eight?” He asks as Uncle Barry puts his arm back into a sling.

Uncle Barry just throws a couple apples, three water bottles, two chocolate bars, and a dozen other food items onto his lap. He then gives him a _look_ that basically says he better eat all of it or else.

Wally doesn’t really need to be told twice. He chooses the crackers to start with seeing as how his stomach is doing flips right now and he doesn’t think he could stomach anything else. Uncle Barry opens a bottle of water for him. He takes his time eating at first, since he doesn’t really want to end up throwing up again. Uncle Barry leaves him to his thoughts and just stares at him with a mix of concern and outright disappointment. Wally tries not to mind and just continues eating.

After a sufficient amount of food and water has been consumed, and Uncle Barry seems content that Wally isn’t about to pass out from dehydration and/or mal-nourishment, The Rant starts.

“Do you have any idea how incredibly dangerous this little stunt was?” He starts, making sure that he meets Wally’s eyes. Wally gives a small nod. “But you went ahead and did it anyway? Not only did you put your own life in danger but every one of your teammates lives as well. You know that right? You could have gotten killed, Wally! What were you thinking!?” Wally stares at his uncle guiltily. “You know how dangerous it is for you to not eat for extended periods of time.” Uncle Barry sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Look I get that you want to know your limits, believe me I do, but this was a reckless decision that could have gotten you and everybody else seriously hurt. And I know that you would never want to endanger your friends.” He pauses and tilts Wally’s head up so he can look him in the eye. “You know that as my partner you’re supposed to tell me when you’re going to do something really dumb, right?” Wally gives a small nervous smile. “So how about this: you are grounded from patrol for the next week.” He puts up a finger to silence Wally when he starts to protest. “You have to help Iris cook for the next two weeks, and next time you think up a really dumb and dangerous experiment like this one, you have to confront me about it first. Deal?” Wally groans before agreeing.

It wouldn’t really be that bad. Well, besides the cooking. Sure, Wally loves food. But cooking takes _so long_. Watching a piece of toast cook is like watching a puddle dry up after it rains. It takes _forever!_

“Oh yeah, and Bats will probably suspend you from the team for acting out, which,” Uncle Barry puts his finger back up before Wally can even open his mouth. “You will rightfully do as told. Now,” Uncle Barry stands and starts collecting garbage. “Eat some more and then apologize to your team.”

At his words Robin sticks his head through the doorway and grins at Uncle Barry.

“So we’re allowed in now?” He asks before walking in without an answer. Following behind him are the others, ending with a very pissed off looking Artemis.

Wally grimaces. “How long have you guys been there?”

“Since the Flash started berating you.” Rob says easily as he hops up onto the foot of Wally’s bed and snags a bag of chips.

“I apologize, we did not intend to overhear your conversation.” Kaldur says, giving Robin a pointed look. The bird continues grinning, completely un-phased.

“We just wanted to make sure that Wally was okay.” Megan says nervously from beside Kaldur.

“It’s fine, you guys didn’t do anything wrong.” Uncle Barry says, squeezing Wally’s shoulder. “Wally here is going to tell you all about his little oopsie, aren’t you, kiddo?” Wally grimaces again, shrugging off his uncle’s hand.

He rubs the back of his head and finds he can’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“So I might have fu – uh screwed up today-”

“Royally.” Artemis fits in and Wally tries _very_ hard not to glare at her.

“And I’m sorry for putting the team in danger because of my reckless actions.” Wally apologizes, still looking at his lap.

“So what’s this experiment thing you guys were talking about?” Rob asks before anyone else can say anything and Wally cringes slightly.

“I might have tried to see how long I could last without food. Apparently it didn’t go so well.” Wally shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly and tries not to see his uncle’s eyes narrow at him from the corner of his eye.

“That sounds stupid.” Conner says bluntly, arms crossed over his chest.

“Yeah, well it kind of seemed like an okay idea at the time.” Wally grins sheepishly.

“We are all very pleased to learn that you will be alright.” Kaldur says calmly. “But please, my friend, the next time you feel the need to endanger yourself such as you did today, may I request that you inform the team? It would be a well thought idea that we, as your teammates, are informed of your wellbeing.”

“Yeah, of course.” Wally says, nodding. “Look guys, I really am sorry for today, I was being an idiot.” A small hopeful smile slides onto his face when he looks up and sees that his teammates are not all glaring daggers at him. Well, minus Artemis, but beggars can’t be choosers. Megan elbows Artemis in the side making her sigh.

“Do us all a favour and try not being an idiot next time, Kid-Klutz.” She grumbles, still glaring slightly at Wally but lacking the same vehemence as earlier. Megan seems satisfied with the archer and smiles brightly. Artemis grimaces and avoids everyone’s eyes, glaring at the wall to the side.

The team stays for awhile afterwards just talking about mindless stuff. A couple hours later, Uncle Barry starts kicking everybody out so they could get some much needed rest. Wally is practically sleeping sitting up by this point.

“So since it’s almost three in the morning, and I’m your amazing uncle, you’re not going to school tomorrow.” Uncle Barry says as he finishes piling the food onto the table.

“It has nothing to do with this unexplainable cast, does it?” Wally asks, waving his arm to show off the blue splint.

“That too.” Uncle Barry says, winking before ruffling Wally’s hair and making his nephew whine. “Get some rest, kiddo.”

“Yeah, yeah, Uncle B.” Wally says, swatting his uncle’s hand away from his hair. His uncle smirks down at him before turning to leave. Uncle Barry turns the light off on his way out and Wally rolls onto his side, pulling the covers up to his chest.

He closes his eyes and tries not to think about how much crap he’s going to be in when he gets home. Uncle Barry had called his parents earlier, telling them that Wally would be staying at Mount. Justice until the splint came off and his parents had seemed okay with it, but Wally could never be sure.

“Wally?”

Wally’s eyes snap open and he sits up in bed looking around the darkened room for the person the voice belonged to.

“It’s me.” Wally blinks confused.

“Megan?” He whispers, spotting the martian as she carefully makes her way over to his bed, stopping at the foot of his bed.

“I swear I didn’t hear anything earlier.” Her voice sounds strained from emotion and Wally finds himself frowning. “You just seemed so upset and I wanted to make sure you were okay, I didn’t hear anything. It’s just you were projecting your feelings and I acted without thinking and I’m sorry if I hurt you-”

“Megan, it’s okay.” Wally says quickly before Megan can start crying. “I know you were just trying to help. I was a dick and over-reacted. It wasn’t your fault.” He can’t see her face but he can tell that she’s still upset. “I’m not mad at you.”

“I swear I didn’t hear anything. It’s just...” She seems to pause to think so Wally lets her take her time. “Should I have?” And her voice sounds so desperate and worried that it throws Wally for a second. He can’t respond and is left staring at Megan with wide eyes. He quickly hides the panic blooming across his features, hoping beyond all hope that it’s too dark in the room for her to catch his slip-up. “I’m sorry.” Megan says suddenly. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business, I should go.” Before Wally can do anything about it, Megan’s gone and he’s left alone in the room again.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before he lies back down and stares at the dark ceiling in shock.

Even if Megan says she didn’t hear anything what if she did? What is Wally supposed to do? What if she tells the team or Uncle Barry and then everyone ends up being worried about him? Or worse, ends up hating him or pitying him or disgusted by him or disappointed in him. He doesn’t think he could deal with that right now. But he can’t just outright beg Megan not to tell anyone because what if she doesn’t actually know anything and he’s just being a stupid idiot again? She’ll definitely know _something_ by the end of that conversation that Wally really doesn’t want her to know.

“Fuck.” Wally groans, rubbing at his face.

He’s screwed.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate writing Kaldur. No matter what I do, I just seem to mutilate how he speaks... It's awful. Anyone know how to speak politely and properly at the same time? Lol.
> 
> PLEASE LET ME KNOW OF ANY ERRORS, Thanks~!


	7. Masks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI~! *pleasedon'thateme*
> 
> So I'm bringing you guys a present... it's for anyone who's still reading this even though I'm like the most unreliable author EVER. - lots of personal drama, plus school, and exams, and work, and life in general, got in the way (excuses, excuses). But I'm back!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS~~ as always, just be warned for referenced/implied child abuse. 
> 
> And again, MERCI BUCKETS for Editor K and her amazing ability to put up with my crap. ^u^ ENJOY~!

Wally is waiting patiently for a bomb to go off.

Ever since talking to Megan the night before, Wally has been a coiled spring of suppressed panic. He doesn’t know if Megan told him the truth about not hearing anything in his thoughts, but he’s really hoping that she did. He knows that Megan isn’t the lying type but he also knows that the Martian thinks she had crossed a line when reading Wally’s thoughts. She’s probably upset about the whole mess and doesn’t want to make matters worse by telling Wally she _had_ heard something. Wally could also just be over-reacting about Megan knowing something she shouldn’t. Needless to say, he’s freaking out a little.

He doesn’t know how he should react around his friend anymore. If Megan does know something, she would probably wait for Wally to go to her first, seeing as how she’s too polite to just force someone to talk to her. She would probably – not so subtly – try to get a reading off of him to see if what she had heard had been right. So if Wally acts normal, Megan might just let it go. Then again, she might think it odd that Wally’s acting normally after he had acted weirdly the day before, in which case, she would probably pry further. And if she _doesn’t_ know anything she would probably think Wally’s mad at her and would try to fix things which in turn would make things all the more difficult for Wally.

In all honesty, Wally would rather avoid the Martian until the end of time because now he knows that if he thinks too loud, Megan can accidentally hear him. If she didn’t know anything before, then the way Wally reacted during the mission pretty much gave away that something wasn’t right. So if Wally acts normally there’s a fifty/fifty chance that this whole mess could just blow away in the wind. Or things could get a hell of a lot worse.

Then there’s the fact that Megan _obviously_ suspects something. There’s no doubt about that. The whole asking if she should have heard something kind of gave away that impression. Wally’s not too sure what to make of that. He’s been hiding everything in his life from the team from the very start and from Robin for even longer. He doesn’t think he could handle letting someone in. Besides, it’s not like they would understand. All Wally would end up doing is looking like a weak victim, and he’s not about to subject himself to their pity over something so small.

Wally groans and rubs at his eyes with his hands. He’s too tired to deal with this crap right now. He barely got any sleep last night. Between being woken up two or three times throughout the night by Red Tornado or Kaldur to make sure his head wasn’t getting worse, and fretting over what to do about Megan, he slept maybe three hours.

He’s currently curled up in front of the TV in the main rec-room watching some home decorating show and trying desperately not to fall asleep. If he sleeps now it’ll just be harder to fall asleep tonight. The symptoms from his concussion have already worn off which Wally is damn happy for. Apparently, he ended up scaring Kaldur the first time the Atlantean had to wake him up. Wally guesses that trying to hide under his pillow while spouting chemical formulas like they would ward off all evil might be the reason behind it. According to Kaldur, it was an “interesting experience”. Wally’s just happy that he’s not concussed anymore. He can make a damn good fool out of himself without the help of a head injury just fine, thank you.

Wally pulls his Green Lantern blanket tighter around himself. He’s alone at the moment. Megan, Conner, and Robin are all at school. Kaldur had to go back to Atlantis that morning for some reason or another - Wally doesn’t really remember since he was half asleep at the time. Artemis is God knows where. Wally honestly doesn’t care at this point, seeing as how all the female archer seems to care about is showing Wally how pissed she is at his latest failure. Wally’s even trying to be nice to Roy’s replacement, if only for the team’s sake. Of course, Artemis isn’t making things very easy. Like _at all_.

Wally kind of hates being alone right now. Normally, he’d be fine, he’d just finish all of his homework, text Rob about random things, clean his room a couple times over – he always tends to miss stuff the first time – and then relax for awhile. However, this would normally happen if he were benched at home and not at Mount Justice. For being a huge hidden Headquarters inside of a _literal mountain_ , there’s surprisingly very little to do when one is benched. He’s already finished every last piece of homework that he had and he honestly doesn’t spend enough time here to really mess up his room. Wally’s so bored right now, he thinks he would actually welcome Artemis with open arms if she were to show up, if only to have a little company.

The worst part is that he’s not allowed to go home until his arm comes out of the splint. There would be _way_ too many questions asked if someone were to see him with a brand new splint one day and the next be splint-free and perfectly fine. So he’s stuck here until Uncle Barry comes and decides whether or not his arm is healed enough for the splint to come off.

He could go bother Red Tornado, but something just bothers Wally about conversing with a robot. Sure the guy’s a trusted member of the Justice League, but he’s a _robot_. Human interaction just isn’t the guy’s forte. Besides, Wally has absolutely no idea where the team’s Den Mother even is.

Wally sighs and switches the channel to something hopefully more entertaining. Sadly, it ends up being the Nature Channel showing the day-to-day life of a woodpecker. Wally would probably enjoy it on a normal day, but right now all he can do is glare at the screen. He hates woodpeckers. There’s this one that lives in the oak tree right by his window that never stops pecking the damned tree. Wally swears that if that bird wakes him up at five in the morning one more time, he’s going to catch it and feed it to the neighbour’s cat.

Giving up on the TV, Wally turns it off and throws the remote onto the cushion beside him. He gets up, dragging his blanket with him, and makes his way to the kitchen. He opens the fridge, deciding he should probably eat something seeing as how he hasn’t since this morning and Megan and Conner are probably going to be home soon. He finds some weird blue looking food in a casserole dish and takes it out. When he opens it the food smells fine, sort of like meatloaf but... different. He shrugs and sticks it in the microwave to reheat.

While the weird-meatloaf-but-not-meatloaf-thing is reheating, he gets himself some water and checks his cell for messages. Finding none, he tosses the phone onto the island with a sigh and gets himself some silverware. The microwave beeps and Wally takes out the food before sitting down at the island and taking a bite.

A minute later, the Computer announces that Megan and Conner have arrived.

“What do you think?” Megan asks as she comes in and sees what Wally’s eating. Following closely behind her is a frowning Conner.

“It tastes like chicken...” Wally says slowly, frowning slightly at the food in front of him.

“Is it bad?” Megan asks, suddenly distressed.

“What? No! Not at all!” Wally says quickly. “It’s actually really good. It’s just not what I was expecting it to be.” He says with his signature grin before taking another bite. It is actually quite good, even though the colour and smell don’t match the taste at all. “What is it anyway?” He asks, smiling when he sees Megan light up - delighted that someone likes her work.

“It’s a dish from Mars that I tried to integrate with food from here on earth.” She replies happily. “Do you really like it?”

With how hesitant her question is, Wally feels the need to reassure her. “I like anything you make, beautiful.” He says with a genuine smile. Megan beams before flying over to the fridge and rummaging through it.

“You should try these ones too!” She says, pulling containers out with both her hands and her telekinesis, and putting them on the counter. Wally smiles at seeing his friend cheerful again. He’s happy that nothing seemed to have changed between them because of yesterday’s fiasco.

His attention is pulled away when another fork is scooping some of the blue-Martian-food out of the casserole dish. He turns to see Conner taking a bite. The clone chews for a moment then swallows, considering the food with a contemplative frown. Seeming satisfied, the Kryptonian grabs some more. Wally smirks before spooning some more into his own mouth.

They sit there and eat random – but surprisingly edible – dishes Megan made for the next little while. Wally samples some of everything but finds he’s not really that hungry. He guesses the food must be filling or something. He still doesn’t really know what’s in any of it, but he hasn’t gotten sick from food poisoning yet so it’s probably safe to say that the food isn’t toxic to humans.

The whole while, Wally is persistently ignoring the way Megan keeps shooting glances at him. Whether she knows something or not, Wally does _not_ want to have that conversation with her. So he keeps smiling like normal and teaching Conner about the ‘real world’, just like he always does, in hopes that Megan will figure out that he’s _a-okay_. His smiles are turning less forced and more _him_ , as his mask comes back up. _He_ knows they’re still fake as day, but so far no one else has noticed just how fake Wally really is. He has never been happier about his acting skills. On the outside he’s the same as ever: a little cocky, sarcastic, a flirt, and of course, happy-go-lucky-science-nerd Wally.

The inside’s a different story. He’s waiting for someone to say something about yesterday. He’s on edge, especially since Megan looks like she wants to say something, but just isn’t sure how. Conner on the other hand looks none the wiser, meaning that Megan hasn’t said anything to the clone. If Conner did know anything, than he definitely would have said something in his naturally blunt way of wording stuff he doesn’t understand. So if she hasn’t told Conner than it’s almost assured that she hasn’t told anyone at all, which means she wants it to be between her and Wally.

By the time Rob shows up, Wally has thought over a hundred different ways of getting out of talking to Megan, but still figuring out if the Martian actually knows something or not, and over fifty different scenarios of getting Megan to forget about everything she heard and to get her to believe him when he says ‘it’s not a big deal’.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to worry about avoiding the Martian with excuses because not two minutes after Robin shows up, the computer announces that Green Lantern has arrived.

Hal Jordan walks into the kitchen and ruffles Robin’s hair as he passes. The bird grumbles and shoots warning glares at the Lantern who just grins widely at him. Hal turns to survey the group and notices all of the blue food spread out on top of the island.

“Did the cookie monster die or something?” He asks as he lifts up a container of what would appear to be mashed potatoes.

“It’s half Martian, half earth food.” Wally says nodding at the container in Hal’s hand. “Try it. It’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass.” Hal says, before gingerly putting the blue food back on the counter. “Right, so anyway, Barry got caught up in League stuff so he asked me to come get you.”

Wally frowns slightly before shrugging and getting up. He picks his blanket up from where it fell onto the ground as he starts piling dishes in the sink.

“Cheating on the Flash, are we?” Hal jokes and Wally looks down at the blanket in his hands before smirking himself.

“I bought it after I met John.” He says simply. Hal blinks and opens his mouth then closes it, looking completely lost for words before scrunching up his face and looking appalled.

“Now that’s just mean.” He says, and Wally laughs at his surrogate uncle’s face. Wally walks past him and grins at Rob who then grins at Hal.

“Yeah, sorry GL, but John’s a way cooler Lantern than you.” Rob says sweetly, making Hal glare at him.

“How?!” Hal sputters before following Wally out of the room. Wally just grins. “No, seriously! I’m the cool uncle, remember?” He says, jabbing a thumb at his own chest.

“No, Uncle Barry’s the ‘cool’ uncle. You’re supposed to be the ‘fun’ uncle.” Wally reminds him as they make their way to the med-bay to deal with Wally’s arm.

“Then what does that make John?” Hal asks.

“The better-than-you uncle.” Wally says cheekily. Hal narrows his eyes at him before shoving him playfully.

“Take that back.”

“Nope.” Wally grins at Hal’s exasperated sigh.

They make it to the Med-Bay and Wally hops up onto a bed. He holds out his arm for Hal to take.

“I still don’t see why I couldn’t do this by myself.” Wally remarks.

“Probably because if you were left alone for even a second you would’ve had the splint off, be moving your arm around like nothing was wrong, and end up making it worse.” Hal says dryly.

“That’s not... okay maybe that’s true, but still!” Wally whines. He almost points out that technically he _was_ alone the entire day, seeing as how Red Tornado disappeared off somewhere early that morning. So he could have done what he pleased, but decides that – knowing the League, and the fact that Batman has cameras _everywhere_ – someone would have found out one way or another. Hal just laughs before sitting down in the chair by the bed.

“So,” Hal says, glancing at Wally as he checks over the splint using his ring. Seeming satisfied, he starts un-strapping the splint. “Barry told me how you broke your arm. And might I say, that was pretty stupid, especially for you.” Wally makes a face at him.

Hal takes off the splint and Wally starts moving his wrist to see if anything hurts.

“How’s it feel?” Hal asks, tossing the splint to the side.

“Normal.” He replies, shrugging. It twinges, but it’s nothing Wally isn’t used to dealing with. A simple sweater will hide the bruises until they fade. Hal nods, sitting back in the chair.

“You know, you really scared your uncle, kid.” Hal says after a moment. Wally looks away, avoiding Hal’s gaze. He’s not sure if he manages to keep the guilt off of his face. He knows that he freaked Uncle Barry out, and with how over-protective Uncle Barry gets, Wally is probably going to be on an even tighter leash than normal for the foreseeable future. “Wally, look at me.” Wally reluctantly looks back at Hal, but avoids eye contact. “He’s not mad at you, you know. He just cares about you. You just freaked him out a little is all.” Hal smiles at him softly for a moment before grinning. Wally blinks, confused. “Though, he did tell me to threaten you with bodily harm if you ever pulled a stunt like that again.” Wally raises an eyebrow at him. “Or that might have been Roy, I can’t remember.” Hal starts laughing at the horror stricken face Wally must be giving him. “Oh, don’t worry, he’s too busy with this case he’s been working on to come and smite you in your sleep. Well, at least for the next few days.”

“Comforting.” Wally mutters. _Great._ Now he has to avoid Roy for the next millennia. Nothing he says to the archer will save him now.

Wally bundles his blanket in his arms while grumbling under his breath and gets up to leave. He’s stopped by a hand on his arm. Wally pauses and looks back at Hal who looks uncharacteristically conflicted.

“Look, so, uh...” Hal pauses to cough awkwardly into his fist before rubbing the back of his neck. “You and I both know that I’m not one for... talking about _feelings_ and all of that crap - that’s Barry’s thing - but uh,” he pauses to make eye contact with Wally, looking more awkward than Wally thinks he’s ever seen the man. “You know if you ever needed someone to talk to, I’m here for you, right?” Hal looks serious for a whole of five seconds until Wally starts laughing uncontrollably.

“Did Uncle Barry ask you to talk to me? ‘Cause I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk like an adult before.” Hal opens his mouth to respond then closes it again, looking like a fish out of water, which makes Wally laugh harder.

“Was it really that awkward sounding?” Hal asks sheepishly. “I thought that it was pretty thought out.”

“Yeah sure, if you didn’t sound like a mock Uncle Barry.” Wally grins and Hal frowns. “Did you just repeat what he told you to?”

“No!” Hal sputters, face going red. Wally raises an eyebrow “I changed the words around a bit.” He mumbles out and Wally snorts. Hal opens his mouth to say something more but pauses suddenly to press a hand to his ear. There’s a beat before Hal responds. “Be right there.”

“League?” Wally asks after Hal ends the call.

“Yeah, Big Blue’s calling for a meeting. Godfrey’s talking trash about the League again, you know, the usual.” Wally nods. He understands how his uncle and the rest of the League feel about Godfrey. The man definitely has it out for the League and isn’t letting the Team get any breaks either. “So listen, are you fine with getting home by yourself?”

Wally openly glares. “I’m almost sixteen, Hal. I think I can manage getting to my house without assistance, jeez.” Hal grins and ruffles Wally’s hair.

“As long as you’re sure.” Wally rolls his eyes as Hal makes his way to the door. “By the way,” Wally looks back up to see Hal pausing in the doorway. “What I said before, as awfully Barry-like as it was, I meant it.”

Wally doesn’t miss a beat with his smile and says as sickeningly sweet as possible, “Of course, _Uncle Hal_.” Hal grimaces.

“Why do you always have to make me sound so old?” He whines. Wally grins, shrugging.

“Because you are.” He snorts at the scowl Hal gives him. “Don’t fall asleep during the meeting!” Wally adds as Hal turns to leave the room again.

“No promises, _kid_.” Hal gives Wally a mock salute before glowing green and flying off out of the room. “See ya!”

“See ya...” Wally mumbles after the Green Lantern. He squeezes the blanket in his arms to his chest for a moment, burying his face in the soft fleece, before letting out a sigh. He’s drained. All he wants to do is sleep, but of course, he has to go home to do that.

He couldn’t _possibly_ wait any longer.

Even though he absolutely hates being benched at Mount Justice, he’d so much rather that then go home and face his dad’s wrath. But he knows the longer he waits, the worse it’ll be. Besides, if he stays here then there’s a good possibility he could get ambushed by Megan, and Wally would rather his dad’s wrath over that.

So he sucks it up and goes to his room to gather up his schoolwork before heading back home. Uncle Barry had kindly dropped off the work earlier that morning when he came to check on Wally before leaving for his day-job. He had said that it should help occupy Wally’s time while he was stuck at the mountain. In all honesty, it did help Wally from going stir crazy - for maybe about a whole of thirteen minutes. But it’s the thought that counts.

Wally shoves his homework in his backpack, along with his neatly folded uniform. Someone, probably Red Tornado now that he thinks about it, had washed the blood and grime off of it and had left it waiting for him on his bed. He should probably thank the Den Mother when he gets a chance. Right now, though, all Wally can focus on is getting home without being interrogated by Megan.

Wally looks around for his cell but can’t seem to find it. He pats down his pockets. Nothing. He’s just about to check under his bed when there’s a knock on his door. Wally perks his head up to see Robin standing in his doorway, scrolling over something on Wally’s phone.

“So, Roy’s really trying to get a hold of you.” He says as Wally hops up off of the ground and walks over to him. “Five missed calls and about thirty texts. Wow. Oh, were you looking for this?” He says, looking up at Wally. “You left it in the kitchen. Artemis almost smashed it when it wouldn’t stop beeping, but don’t worry, I saved it.”

“Thanks...” Wally says distractedly as he takes the phone from the Boy Wonder. There were in fact closer to forty texts from Roy, all with varying degrees of hostility and genuine anger emanating off of them. Wally sighs as another text comes through. He opens it to find a very Roy-like message.

_-Answer. You’re. Fucking. Phone. Or so help me God, Wally.-_

Wally doesn’t even bother replying. Instead he turns off his phone and throws it onto his bed, only feeling the tiniest bit guilty.

“So what’s the deal with Roy?” Rob asks cautiously. “He seemed... upset.”

“He found out about my latest Fuck-up. _Apparently_ he doesn’t approve.” Wally shrugs before going back over to his bed to grab his bag and his rejected phone. Maybe if Wally ignores him long enough, Roy will get bored and forget about this whole thing and let it go. _As if. Since when are you ever_ that _lucky?_ It’s a comforting thought, though.

“Does he normally get like that with you?” Wally blinks before turning to look back at Rob. Even with the sunglasses, Wally can still tell that the thirteen year-old is bothered.

“What do you mean?”

“He seems... I don’t know... angrier than usual?” Rob sounds unsure. Wally blinks again.

“Dude, it’s just Roy being hot-headed like usual.” Wally shrugs his backpack onto one shoulder. “He’ll get over himself in a couple of days.” Robin still looks uncertain so Wally smiles reassuringly. “Relax, Rob. He’s just being stupidly over-protective. It’s fine. The most he’ll do is grumble about me being stupid and reckless, and glare daggers. Kind of like what Artemis is going to be doing for the next three weeks. You know, the usual show of love.” That at least gets a small smile out of his friend. Wally internally sighs with relief. “So, anyway, see you later?”

“What, you’re heading back home already?” Rob asks as he follows Wally out of his room.

“Well, yeah. I mean, as much as I love being benched and forced to stay in the mountain doing absolutely nothing productive with my time, I do in fact have things I need to do.” Wally replies. “Besides, I need time to let my parents fret over me before dinner.” _Ha. As if._

“Speaking of fretting: not to sound like a mother hen or anything, but are you sure you’re feeling okay? No offense, dude, but you look like crap.”

“ _Ru_ de.” Wally half-heartedly glares at his friend as they make their way to the Zeta-tubes. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.” He shrugs. “I guess concussions and sleep don’t mix.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that...” Rob trails off. Wally glances at his friend to find the younger hero studying him.

“What?”

“Nothing, just...” Rob shakes his head. “Nothing. Forget about it.”

“’Kay...” Wally says slowly, eyeing the younger. He can tell that the Boy Wonder wants to say something more, but Wally’s kind enough not to pry. They reach the Zeta-tubes and Wally turns back to Rob who’s staring intently at the floor. “So, uh... see ya later?”

“Hmm?” Rob looks back up. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” He smiles slightly. “Feel better, Baby-Flash.”

Wally narrows his eyes. “I’m so getting you back for that. Just you wait. It’s coming.”

“ _Sure._ ” Rob grins.

 

~~~

 

By the time Wally gets home, it’s almost dinner time. He walks up the driveway and is mildly relieved that his father’s car isn’t parked there. He quietly unlocks and opens the front door. Kicking off his sneakers, he shuts the door behind himself and relocks it. He makes sure his shoes are in their proper place in the closet before heading towards his room.

He pauses while passing the kitchen where his mother is chopping up vegetables and pouring them into a pot for dinner.

“Hi, Mom.” Wally says quietly from the doorway. There’s a slight pause in the chopping but other than that, his mother doesn’t acknowledge Wally’s presence. “Do you want any help-“

“I didn’t know you would be home for dinner tonight.” Wally’s mother interrupts him. Her voice is level but Wally still flinches slightly from the sudden coldness. She continues to chop the carrots.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve called-“

“There won’t be enough for your eating habits.” She states blandly, interrupting Wally again. She pours the chopped carrots and celery into the pot. Wally tries to ignore the indifference in his mother’s voice. _She’s just upset because I should have called. She’s not trying to be mean. It’s fine._

“That’s okay, Mom. I ate earlier.” Wally says quickly.

“Of course you did.” She mutters. Wally frowns in confusion. “That’s all you do. _Eat_.”

“I’m sorry.” Wally blurts out automatically. _Stop upsetting her!_ “I didn’t-“

“You’re father will be home soon.” Wally opens his mouth but his mother continues. “You should put your things upstairs before he comes home.”

Wally swallows. “Was he... Was he mad? Last night?” He asks quietly.

“Go put your things upstairs.”

“Mom-“

The knife slams down onto the cutting board, causing the forgotten ends of carrots to bounce and roll off onto the counter. Wally can’t help but flinch.

“ _Now!_ ”

Wally stands there, staring at his mother’s profile. She hasn’t looked at him once since he got home, and even now, she won’t even so much as glance at him.

_Look at what you did, you stupid, idiot! Why would you make her raise her voice like that?! Why do you always have to make her upset? Why can’t you just be a normal-_

“Sorry.” He says quickly before turning and heading up the stairs to go to his room.

_Why are you always such a fuck up?! No wonder everyone hates you. All you do is make everyone unhappy-_

He closes the bedroom door behind him and tries to breathe. He screwed up. He screwed up _big time_. His mother rarely raises her voice anymore. Ever since Wally started butting into every fight between his parents and getting his father to leave his mother alone, she’s barely ever raised her voice. She only ever does it when Wally really fucks up, and even then, it’s rare. He knows she hates him for what he does. He’s okay with that because doing what he does keeps her safe. So it’s ok if she yells at him sometimes, it just means she cares about him. _She was probably just worried about me and didn’t know how to show it. That’s all. She was just worried. It’s just like with Uncle Barry. He got mad because he was worried, that’s all._

Rational thinking. All Wally has to do is _think_ rationally. He knows that people show worry and fear in different ways such as anger, so that’s all this was. His mother was worried and showed it with anger. Simple as that.

Wally takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose.

It’s fine.

Everything’s fine.


	8. Honey I'm Home?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss me?
> 
> So here's another rather sporadic update eh? 
> 
> So, TW as always: referenced/implied child abuse, referenced/implied alcoholism.
> 
> Sorry for the short chapter, the next one is gunna be a LOT longer i promise! ENJOY~!~!

Wally has never really been all that good at collecting himself after having a fight with his mother. His father, yeah sure, no problem, pull a sweater on to hide the bruises. If his face gets hit, use some cover-up. He’s used to it by now. But his mother, now that’s a whole different story. Because it’s so rare for Wally’s mother to snap at him, he doesn’t know how to react. When his father yells Wally knows to expect to be hit and he’s fine with that, he’s brought that on himself, but his mother is completely unpredictable. The only warning Wally ever gets is when her voice suddenly goes thin and uninterested and she won’t even spare him a glance. After that, if he doesn’t do as he’s asked, she will either snap at him, with vicious words, like the tail end of a whip striking the air, or something within her reach will break and her voice will turn almost shrill.  Anything could happen. There is no pattern that Wally can use to predict an outcome, no signs that even his enhanced reaction time can foresee. Nothing.

It’s terrifying.

He needs a pattern or something. When he and his father fight it’s assured that there will be punches thrown. Even if Wally isn’t always correct in predicting when his father will snap, the outcome, with Wally being the loser of the fight, is always the same. His father will walk away in search of alcohol, and Wally will walk away with bruises. It’s always definite, his father’s actions are always calculable. And as awful as it sounds, Wally needs the sense of normalcy that comes with that predictability. It lets him know where he stands. Without it, he doesn’t know how to bounce back up.

Maybe it’s because Wally’s mother has a tendency to avoid him, so they never really get a chance to talk, let alone fight. Or maybe it’s true what they say, that actions speak louder than words, but words can cut sharper than any knife. His father’s actions almost seem dull now compared to his mother’s words.

He understands why his mother hates him, really. He gets it. He jumped in front of the line of fire for her when he was barely seven years old, and ever since then he has been butting into every confrontation between his parents just to protect her. His mother never wanted him to be a hero. She was the most adamant about keeping him off of the streets when he first gained his powers, just like how she used to continuously try and shove Wally out of the way whenever he’d jump into the middle of one of his parents’ fights. But no matter what she tried, Wally would always go against her wishes just to play hero. He doesn’t even let her defend herself anymore out of fear that his father will hurt her. His mother never deserves to be hurt. Wally took her power to protect him away, so he understands why she hates him.

Wally of all people knows what it’s like to feel powerless.

He tries his best to hide everything behind a cocky attitude, tossing jokes around to his friends and throwing insults at the villains, anything to keep up the Kid Flash persona. That’s all his friends really know him as. Even out of costume, he’s still just Kid Flash to them. Wally West is just a name, but the real Wally is nothing like Kid Flash. He’s weak and scared and worthless. He can’t even stand up to the bullies at school, let alone his dad at home. That’s why Wally is determined to not let the team know about his home life. He doesn’t know what he would do if anyone knew he was so useless. He doesn’t want to stop being Kid Flash and give up the only thing he has that makes him feel useful. 

Wally takes a deep breath and loosens his arms from around himself. He’s sitting on the floor his back against his bed and his knees up to his chest. His father is home, he can hear his voice coming from downstairs, he figures he should probably go downstairs before his father gets irritated that Wally is being his usual anti-social “freak” self.

He stands up and straightens his clothes with only slightly shaking hands.  As he makes his way to the door, he passes by his mirror and peeks a quick glance at himself. Wally hopes that the face staring back at him is actually closer to his normal, freakishly pale skin tone than the god-awful pale he thinks it looks like. There is still some bruising on his forehead, just above his right eye and stretching up past his hairline. It’s a light green, bordering more on yellow and will probably be gone by the time Wally gets up in the morning. The cuts on his cheek and forehead are completely gone, not a single scar remaining.

What gets Wally, though, is how dark the circles under his eyes are. Rob was right – he looks like complete and utter _crap_. It could just be because of how pale he is, but the purple, almost bruised-looking skin under his eyes makes him look like death.

He sighs as he forces himself to turn away from the mirror and open his bedroom door. Silently making his way downstairs, he listens for his parent’s voices. All he can hear is his mother working away in the kitchen.

He pauses in the doorway to the kitchen, much like he had not an hour before, and watches silently as his mother scoops spoonfuls of soup out into bowls. She smiles at him when she sees him, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. Wally tries not to notice the nearly empty wine glass near his mother’s hand, nor the two bottles of wine by the fruit bowl, one of which is noticeably less full than the other. He doesn’t succeed.

He doesn’t speak up about the fact that his mother is drinking again after nearly four months of sobriety, doesn’t say anything about the smooth little fake curve of her lips she calls a smile, nor anything about how her uncoordinated movements suggest she’s too inebriated to really be allowed anywhere near a stove. He knows better than to say anything by now, knows that the resulting argument would do nothing but make everything worse. Instead he just tries to keep the guilt off his face as he attempts to smile back. It must look more like a grimace but his mother doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

It’s been years since Wally’s seen his mother show a true smile. The smiles she shows in front of guests are practiced enough that the cheery pleasantness almost doesn’t look forced. All the alcohol does is make her easy practiced smile look unnerving. It’s the kind of fake that makes Wally want to cry, because it could be _real_ , but it’s still so unsettlingly perfectly wrong that it makes him feel sick. He _hates_ that smile. He misses her real smiles, the ones full of love and happiness and warmth and peace, but he hasn’t seen one since before things went bad – before Wally started protecting her. There were a few times that Wally had been able to make his mother happy – happy enough to actually show a genuine smile, not just an empty shell poised in the audience’s favor.

That hasn’t happened since Wally became Kid Flash.

He can’t help but feel guilty for all of the pain he’s caused her, desperately wanting nothing more than to see his mother smile again without the constant need to have full wine glass in hand.

Wally watches his mother take two bowls of soup into the dining room, with mildly drunken movements, leaving Wally alone in the kitchen. He walks over to the island to grab his own bowl of soup and the basket of rolls. He grits his teeth when he sees the bottles of wine, wanting nothing more than to dump the contents down the drain, along with every other bottle of alcohol in the house. He won’t, though, nor will he ever. No matter how much he wants to, he doesn’t want to have another fight with his mother tonight – especially not this fight.

They’ve had this fight before, twice to be exact. The first time ended with an eight year-old Wally with a bruised cheek, holding his sobbing mother in his arms while huddled on the kitchen floor. Wally had felt so guilty about what had happened that he hadn’t brought it up for years.

But when he was twelve, something in him just sort of snapped.

_Wally watches his mother slowly make her way through a bottle of wine, while nursing his black eye with a small bag of frozen peas. He needs the swelling to go down, otherwise Uncle Barry will notice the damage that Wally’s father has left him with after their latest fight. His mother is too preoccupied with her task of getting drunk to notice that Wally’s been watching her for the past fifteen minutes._

_“You know drinking isn’t going to help this, right?” He doesn’t really know why he says it. Maybe it’s because his mother is acting out in a parody of what his father has been doing for Wally’s entire life, and it’s making him more infuriated than he already was. “You’re just like him.”_

_His mother turns her head to stare at him with a blank expression and cloudy green eyes._

_“Excuse me?”_

_“I said that you’re acting just like dad.” Wally says, ignoring the way his mother’s eyes narrow as she puts her wine glass down and turns toward him._

_“I am_ nothing _like your father.” She says, her voice, almost too quiet to hear. “Do_ not _compare me to him-”_

_“Then what are you doing?” Wally demands, standing up from his spot on the stairs, the bag of peas forgotten on the step. “He drinks, he loses his temper, then he drinks some more. You’re acting exactly like him. Here you are drinking-”_

_“Stop it-”_

_“And look – now you’re getting mad at me because I said something about you-”_

_“Wallace!”_

_“Heaven forbid I ever be_ worried _about you or something!” Wally practically spits. “I’m twelve, mom, I’m not fucking stupid. I know what an alcoholic looks like-” His words are cut short when his mother suddenly throws her wine glass into the sink, shattering it into tiny shards._

_Wally watches in stunned horror as his mother takes the opened bottle of wine, dumping the rest of it on top of the shattered glass before tossing it aside onto the counter. Wally stands there wide eyed as the bottle rolls until it hits the wall and stops._

_“M-mom?” Wally hears his voice crack. His mother doesn’t seem to hear him._

_She turns to the bottom cupboard, the one Wally learned to never go near, and starts pulling out bottles of alcohol and piling them onto the countertop._

_“Mom, what are you-” Wally breaks off when he realizes what his mother is planning on doing. “Mom, don’t!” He says in vain. His mother is already dumping the first bottle down the drain and tossing it aside before Wally can even think to jump off of stairs and stop her. “Mom!” She doesn’t even acknowledge him, too preoccupied with dumping the bottles of alcohol down the drain._

_Wally is instantly by his mother’s side, not caring about the ‘no powers at home’ rule. He grabs her wrist before she can dump another one and tries to pry the bottle from her hand._

_“Mom, stop it! You don’t know what you’re–” His mother pulls out of his grip to throw the bottle at the sink. The glass cracks open when it hits the metal, spilling what Wally thinks is whiskey over the counter and onto the floor. The smell of the spilled alcohol quickly reaches Wally’s nose making him feel sick. “Mom, please, just listen to–“_

_“Get off of me!” She snaps, attempting to shove Wally away when he tries to pin her arms down._

_“Mom,_ please. _” Wally’s begging, hugging his mother from behind in a final attempt to keep her arms pinned. His heart is racing and he can feel his mother shaking in his arms, her breathing fast and sharp. He winds his arms tighter around her and presses his forehead into her back. “_ Please. _” He says, his voice a desperate whisper. “Please.” His mother’s arms slowly fall back to her sides, allowing the bottle in her grasp to slip from her fingers. It hits the floor with a muffled thud before rolling into the island. Wally feels his mother let out a silent sob so he just hugs her tighter._

_Wally doesn’t know how long they stand there. He still has trouble with his sense of time, isn’t used to how slow things can feel – an hour to him could be minutes to a person without superspeed. So instead of counting the seconds he counts his mother’s heartbeats, feels them slow as she calms down, but, Wally doesn’t loosen his grip._

_“Mom?” He asks quietly after what feels like forever. He feels his mother take a deep breath before tugging at his arm. Wally drops his arms instantly and takes a cautious step backwards. “Mom?” He asks again, suddenly nervous._

_She doesn’t respond, instead making her way over to the mess of empty bottles and collecting them into her arms. It takes Wally a moment to realize what she’s doing before following suite and helping her clean up the kitchen._

_“I’m sorry.” He says softly, picking up the thankfully unbroken bottle by the island. He sees his mother pause out of the corner of his eye._

_“Don’t.” She says quietly. Wally looks up at his mother, her face is a blank mask again. She won’t meet his eyes._

_Before Wally can say anything else, he hears a car pull up into the driveway. He sees his mother tense up and knows that she heard it too. She whips her head around to scan the remaining bottles that are strewn about all over the counter along with the spilled whiskey and broken glass. Wally sees the fear that flashes in her eyes as she tightens her hold on the bottles, pressing them closer to herself._

_Wally does the first thing he can think of._

_“Go.” He says, gaining his mother’s attention. “Leave those here and go upstairs.” She blinks at him and Wally swallows before reaching out and taking the bottles from his mother’s arms. “Mom, go upstairs. You were never here. You didn’t know_ I _did this._ Go. _” He can’t read her expression, doesn’t have the time to figure it out because his father is going to be in the house in mere seconds. “_ Please. _” His mother blinks before turning and rushing upstairs._

_He turns and stacks all of the empty bottles into one pile on the counter in the span that it takes his mother to reach the master bedroom, he hears the bedroom door click shut just as his father unlocks the front door. Wally tenses and spins around to face the entrance to the kitchen. There’s no way his father won’t notice the alcohol and broken glass covering the floor, so there’s nothing Wally can do but wait for his father to get into the kitchen. Even if he were to clean it in the few heartbeats it’ll take for his father to walk down the hallway, there’s no way Wally can get rid of the smell._

_His father stumbles in eight heartbeats later. He pauses when he sees Wally standing in the middle of the kitchen._

_“Wha’ the fuck are you doin’?” He barks, taking a step towards Wally, only stumbling slightly. He pauses when he notices the state of the kitchen. “The ‘ell happened ‘ere?!” Wally tenses automatically and takes an involuntary step backwards. He hasn’t thought of what to actually say to his father, he just needed his mother out of harm’s way. His father takes three more steps before he has Wally pinned to the counter. Wally slides slightly in the spilled alcohol and tries to catch himself on the sink. His arm slides across the broken glass, but he refuses to acknowledge the pain when the whiskey rubs on the new cuts. “I asked you what th’ fuck you’re doin’!” Wally squeezes his eyes shut before the fist reaches his face–_  

Wally moves away from the island and leaves the bottle of wine exactly where it is, bringing the rolls and his own bowl of soup into the dining room.

His mother had stayed sober for almost nine months after that incident. It didn’t last, it never does, but it reminded Wally that his mother does care for him. She’s trying.

Wally hasn’t brought up her sobriety since.

“Well, look who decided to come home after playing superhero.” His father’s voice brings him out of his thoughts and he glances up to look him in the eyes before taking his spot at the table across from his mother.

“Hi, dad.” He says quietly. His father’s eyes are clear and the whiskey glass by his plate is almost untouched. He’s not drunk.

Wally doesn’t know whether to be pleasantly surprised or worried.

“So, your freak uncle called last night at three in the fucking morning, making some shit excuse for you.” Wally silently grits his teeth. His father knows how much he hates it when Uncle Barry is insulted. “Said you broke your arm, huh? Well, your arm looks fucking fine to me.” His father cuts through his piece of steak, not even looking at Wally as he speaks.

“I heal fast.” Wally says stoically.

“Well, next time, don’t make that fuck up of a cop call me that goddamned late at night if there’s nothing even fucking wrong with you.” His father growls around a piece of steak.

“Yes, Sir.” Wally replies calmly, refusing to show any of what he’s feeling in front of his father.

Instead, he glances at his mother who doesn’t seem to be paying the least bit of attention to Wally or his father. She just silently sips her soup, her other hand never leaving the stem of her wine glass. Wally holds back the sigh that threatens to leave his throat and stares down at his untouched food dejectedly.

The rest of the meal is spent mostly in silence, with the occasional threat from his father stating that Wally better stay caught up in school, that if he’s ever caught skipping, he’s never going back to Mount Justice again. Wally listens, for the most part. He’s heard it all countless times before so the words don’t really need to fully register in his brain for him to get the gist of what his father is saying.

_If you would stop being such a fuck up then he wouldn’t need to say any of this, now would he?_

Wally finishes the small amount of soup allotted to him, knowing better than to ask for seconds. This meal was not made with him in mind. Wally doesn’t really mind, considering his lack of appetite as of late, and instead, clears away the table and starts on the dishes.

His father leaves shortly after dinner to watch some sports game at a co-worker’s house, and his mother promptly locks herself in her room, leaving Wally alone to tidy up the kitchen.

After triple checking that the room is spotless, he decides to head to bed early. He’s still tired thanks to the lack of sleep from the night before and needs to look somewhat presentable at school tomorrow.

He’s out before his head hits the pillow.


	9. Repercussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY! I LIVE! :D
> 
> So, it's been awhile, I'm the worst at updating, seriously, sorry. University is surprisingly not surprisingly demanding. Huh, who would've thought?
> 
> Anyway, so TW: alcoholism, implied drug use, bullies, and mentions of referenced/implied underage/rape (NOTHING HAPPENS I SWEAR). Yeah.
> 
> So this chapter caused me some grief, plus it's stupidly long, but y'all deserve it so here ya go! ENJOY~!~!~!
> 
> Plus thank you a million Editor K, for being a beautiful person and betaing this for me!!!

Wally wakes to the sound of his alarm buzzing on his nightstand. He slams a hand on the machine without looking, hoping to hit the right button and succeeds after a few blind hits. Rolling onto his back, Wally groans. Daytime came way sooner than he was hoping it would.

The sun is already peeking through the bottom of his curtains, brightening his room, and he sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed.

Mornings are the absolute worst. If it were possible, Wally would much rather skip the morning part of the day and jump straight to the afternoon. May as well skip school while he’s at it too, and hey, why not the rest of the day? No, an even better idea – he could just sleep for the next _forever_. He’s pretty sure that would be the best course of action.

Though, it’s not the wisest.

_Ugh_.

He forces himself out of bed and into the shower. Thankfully, the water helps to wake him up.

After all, there’s nothing like a two-minute shower in nearly scalding hot water to wash the sleep from his eyes.

He changes into plain civvies, making sure to look the part – Wallace West, freak science kid from Keystone High. Satisfied with his work, he starts gathering his textbooks and repacking his bag. His phone buzzes from his bedside table and Wally pauses, confused. Walking over, he glances at the clock. Who would text him at seven in the morning?

_Hey, kiddo, I’ll be there around 7:45 to pick you up for school. – B_

Wally stares at his phone. The last time his uncle drove him to school was after he accidentally blew up the microwave in Mount Justice and Batman was close to killing him with his glare. Uncle Barry had driven Wally to school and ‘talked’ to him about how he had to act like an adult and _not_ blow up microwaves, and how much trouble he was in. Wally’s pretty sure that Uncle Barry only drives him to school when he’s in trouble. He doesn’t think this is something to look forward to, and there’s no way he can get out of it. The text alone made it so Wally could only agree.

He sighs and pockets his phone after shooting to his uncle an affirmative text.

Making his way down the hallway to the stairs, Wally pauses by his parent’s room. After checking, he finds the door is still locked, meaning either his father didn’t come home last night, or he was too drunk to make it up the stairs.The room is silent. Wally worries his bottom lip, trying to remember whether or not his mother took any wine up with her and if she found the painkillers he had hid. Wally prays that she didn’t because he doesn’t want to have to worry about her mixing them again.

Knowing that he can’t do anything without breaking down the door, Wally presses his ear against the wood. After several heartbeats he hears a small snore come from inside. Wally lets a sigh of relief escape his lips before silently backs away and continuing back downstairs.

Like he suspected, he finds his father passed out on the couch. Wally’s mildly surprised. For once, there are no bottles surrounding his father’s passed out form. He’s not sure whether to be thankful or wary as he watches his father’s back rise and fall as he breathes. The man’s lying on his stomach, face squished between the arm of the couch and the cushion. If it were anyone else, Wally would laugh at the ridiculousness of this position, but it’s not anyone else, and Wally’s seen this too many times to see the hilarity in it.

He drops his bag by the front door and walks over to his dad, grabbing the wool blanket from the rocking chair by the entrance on his way. He pauses in front of his father and just watches him breathe.

“Why do you do this?” Wally asks him quietly, hugging the blanket to his chest. His father doesn’t show any signs of having heard him, doesn’t wake up and apologize, doesn’t make everything better again, doesn’t–

Wally sighs as he spreads the blanket out over his father’s sleeping form, suddenly feeling more exhausted than he was yesterday. He wants to yell at his father to get his act together, to act like a _dad_ , to stop drowning in a stupid bottle, _to make them all a family again_ – but he can’t. Instead he tucks the blanket as best as he can around his father and bites his tongue.

After he’s satisfied he goes back to the kitchen and silently pours himself some cereal. It isn’t enough to make the hunger go away completely, but grocery day isn’t until Friday, and Wally needs to make sure he has enough to last until then. As he’s finishing up, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

_Waiting outside. – B_

Uncle Barry’s early, which causes alarm bells to go ringing off inside Wally’s head. His uncle is notoriously late for _everything_. Being early should be seen as a good thing, but all Wally can think is that something must be wrong.

_Be out in a sec. – W_

Quickly cleaning up his dishes, he pulls on a sweater and grabs his bag. He pauses right before opening the door and looks back towards the living room, debating whether or not he should check on his father again. Sighing, he decides against it, not wanting to keep his uncle waiting.

He locks the door behind him and heads over to the side of the road where his uncle’s car is waiting.

“Mornin’, kiddo,” his uncle drawls as Wally slides into passenger seat.

“Morning, Uncle B,” Wally chirps, giving his uncle a friendly smile. “What’s the special occasion?” Wally asks, successfully keeping the worry out of his voice.

“What, I’m not allowed to give my favourite nephew a ride to school?” he responds with mock-offence, pulling the car away from the curb.

“You hate driving.”

“That’s because these death contraptions are not suitable for speedsters.” Uncle Barry says, pulling onto a main road. Wally can’t help but grin at this familiar conversation. They’ve debated over the pros and cons of cars many times before. Simply put, both speedsters believe that cars are just not meant for them. And of course, they’re just _too damn slow_.

They talk about meaningless topics for the next couple of minutes and Wally finds himself relaxing and enjoying his uncle’s company. It’s been awhile since they’ve hung out and Wally’s finding that he’s missed it more than he thought he did.

“So, I’ve got a question for you,” Uncle Barry says nonchalantly, but Wally can instantly tell that his uncle is just trying to keep his voice light and non-threatening. “A little birdie told me something about you the other day.” Wally feels his chest constrict. _Did Megan tell him something? What am I supposed to say? What do I–_ “They said you’ve been patrolling by yourself?” Wally blinks. What? Who–

Roy.

_Shit_.

Wally stares blankly out the window, jaw clamped shut. Since when the hell is Roy a tattletale?! Friends don’t just bust other friends like that! And he _promised_ not to tell Uncle Barry! What is he supposed to do now? He can’t just say Roy was lying, because if Roy told Uncle Barry about him being hurt that night, then there will be more unwanted questions that Wally can’t answer. Is this some type of revenge for not answering his phone? Wally swears he’s going to bite off the archer’s head the next time he sees him.

“Wally–”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” He blurts out without thinking, and promptly clamps his mouth shut again. _Smooth, dumbass, now you’re fucked_. He thinks he sees Uncle Barry’s hands grip the steering wheel tighter out of the corner of his eye.

“Not a big deal?” His uncle says, exasperated. “Wally, there are rules for a reason–”

“I _know_ , but–”

“What if you had gotten seriously hurt? What would you have done then?”

“But I _didn’t_ , I was being safe!”

“Safe? Safe would have been telling someone what you were doing, Wally!”

“It’s not like I was going off to _war_ , it was just patrol.”

“Who knew where you were?” Uncle Barry snaps sharply, looking over at him when they stop at a red light. “What’d you tell your parents? That you were with me?” Wally looks straight ahead but he can still feel his uncle’s gaze on his reddening face. What was he supposed to say? _No, Uncle Barry, I didn’t tell them squat. They knew exactly where I was since it happened at home, right in front of them._ “So, what, you just lied to your parents and to me and thought that it was a good idea to go running around without anyone knowing where you were?” He can feel himself shrink away from his uncle’s words.

“I’m almost sixteen, I’m not a little kid anymore. I can handle myself.” Wally says defensively.

“Because this past weekend is a perfect example of how well you can handle yourself.” Uncle Barry bites out, and Wally can’t help but flinch.

“That was different–”

“Is this all a game to you?” Uncle Barry cuts him off and Wally wants to scream in frustration. “Because if it is, I need to know so I can cut off this whole thing between us right now.” Wally doesn’t really know what to say to that without ruining everything he’s built to protect himself, so he continues staring out the front window and tries in vain to keep anything from showing on his face. Uncle Barry’s voice softens slightly as they continue driving. “I need a partner who doesn’t lie to me and continuously throw himself in danger without my knowledge.” Wally feels the need to laugh and cry at the same time. When has he really ever been completely honest with this man? Even before he knew that Uncle Barry was the Flash, he still hid the darkest parts of his home life from him.

He hates this. He can’t say anything against what he told Roy because then he’d be admitting to lying to both of them. But if he doesn’t say anything then he’s getting in trouble for something he didn’t do and then Uncle Barry won’t trust him enough to keep him as a partner. Wally clenches his fists and tries to calm down.

_Stupid Roy. Stupid,_ stupid _Roy!_

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” He murmurs miserably. There’s silence in the car for a moment.

“You’re off of patrol.”Barry states curtly, without looking away from the road.

“What?” Wally whips his head around to stare at his Uncle. “For how long?”

“Three weeks.” He replies, pulling over to the side of the road across from Wally’s school.

“What? No! That’s not fair!” Wally argues.”Uncle Barry–”

“Would you rather a month?” His uncle snaps, looking back at him. “Or, how about we make it two for good measure?” Wally silently glares at his balled up fists in his lap, and refuses to look at his uncle. Uncle Barry sighs. “What’s going on, Wally?” he asks him, concerned. “Is there something going on that you’re not telling me about?” Wally shakes his head and bites his lip. _Please don’t make me lie to you anymore than I already have. Please_. “Is there something I should know?” Wally remains silent. “Kiddo, I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”

“I have to head to class.” Wally mutters quickly, picking up his bag from where it lay at his feet.

“Wally–” Uncle Barry starts but Wally’s already opening the door.

“Thanks for the ride, Uncle B, but I gotta go.” Wally says with as much fake enthusiasm as possible.

“Kid, wait.” Uncle Barry grabs Wally’s wrist before Wally can leave the car. Wally flinches slightly and tenses at the unexpected contact. It doesn’t hurt him, but his initial reaction is enough to make Uncle Barry drop his wrist in an instant. They stare at each other for a moment, with Uncle Barry looking unsure and giving Wally a pleading look, and Wally feeling incredibly guilty, before he looks away and leaves the car.

“Sorry.” Wally says, even though he knows how useless the word is, before he closes the door and quickly crosses the street. He doesn’t look back, not wanting to see his uncle’s hurt expression.

_That went well._

Wally’s pretty sure he’s _royally fucked_. Maybe if he avoids his uncle for the next millennia the man will forget about all of this, and they can go back to their respective, _normal_ lives.

Wally sighs and pushes any thoughts about the past twenty minutes to the back of his mind as he walks up the pathway to the front doors of the building.

Entering the school is the easy part. Navigating around the thousands of other students roaming the halls to get to his locker is a touch harder. Wally keeps his head down and swiftly makes his way down the halls.

He trades the books from his backpack for the ones in the locker and is about to close the door when it slams shut, just narrowly missing closing on his hand in the process. Wally doesn’t have to look up to know who the culprit is.

“Nice of you to finally show up, Freckle Fuck.” Wally turns slowly and glares at the older boy before him. A tall, buff, stupid jock, and an utter asshole, stands in the middle of three more, slightly less buff assholes.

“Hello, Mitchell.” Wally says, blandly. He’s slammed up against the locker by one of Mitchell’s henchmen in what they would probably consider fast, but to Wally is almost in slow motion. Easily deflectable for Kid Flash, but Wally’s not Kid Flash right now. Wally’s bag slides off his shoulder and onto the ground where another henchman promptly kicks the bag against the lockers on the opposite wall, spilling half of Wally’s books and homework across the floor in the process.

“I don’t think I really like the tone of voice you’re using, _faggot_.” Mitchell says, trying to sound all badass and cocky, but like every other time, it does nothing to Wally. He sees it coming and, as per usual, can’t do anything about it aside from shifting slightly to make it hurt less, so when the fist connects with his stomach Wally still has to catch his breath as he lands hard on his knees. He doesn’t make a sound. The punch isn’t hard enough to do any major damage, Wally’s taken hits way worse than whatever this guy could ever give, but it’s still an annoyance.

He doesn’t have to look up to know that no one in the hallway is sparing him a glance. This is a normal occurrence, for the weak fifteen-year-old Wally West to be picked on in the hallway. No one really cares anymore. Not that they cared all that much in the beginning, because Wally has to admit, he had this coming. He’s a permanently messy-haired ginger, with freckles covering his whole body. He’s scrawny and pathetic looking, he’s unnaturally smart, smarter than some of the teachers here if he’s being honest, plus he’s the youngest in practically all of his classes. He’s a freak which makes him an easy target.

He’s pulled back up and pushed back against the wall of lockers before a teacher has the chance to come by and see what happened. Mitchell might be a dumb jock, but he still has enough sense to not get caught. Wally can at least give him that.

“How about showing a bit more respect?” Henchman number three says, getting in Wally’s face. Wally pays it no mind and just focuses on how the people still walking through the hallway are actually being kind enough to try and not step on all of his stuff. This is new and very much appreciated in his opinion.

“Why don’t you just screw off and let him go?”

Wally blinks and looks past Mitchell to see a strawberry blond haired boy glaring at Mitchell with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Excuse me?” Mitchell says, taking a step towards the much smaller guy. The strawberry blond just sticks his chin up slightly and continues looking completely annoyed with the jock before him. Even Wally’s looking at the new guy like he’s some whacko. Strawberry is maybe an inch or two taller than Wally, but Mitchell still has a decent foot on him. And Wally’s pretty sure the guy’s scrawnier than _him_ , and that’s saying something.

Before anyone can say anything else, the bell rings and henchman number three swears, letting Wally go.

Mitchell just gives the new guy a look that says something like “this isn’t over yet”. Strawberry just raises an eyebrow in response, which almost makes Wally laugh because of the glare Mitchell gives him in return. Mitchell backs off, shoving past Wally and not so subtly shoving him into the lockers for a final time, before heading down the hall. His henchmen follow suit, like the little obedient rats they are. Wally just rolls his eyes.

Sighing, he crouches down to start gathering up his notebooks and papers. Sadly, some papers, namely his science project, are ruined from the trampling of careless feet. Not as appreciated.

“Need any help?” Wally looks up to see Strawberry leaning down to make eye contact. “Here,” he says, handing Wally’s backpack over to him.

“Thanks.” Wally replies, giving the other boy a nervous smile, and takes the bag before shoving his stuff back inside.

“Your name’s Wallace, right?” Strawberry asks, as he helps to collect the scattered papers. Wally feels his eye twitch.

“Just Wally’s fine, but yeah.” He looks up to see the guy smiling at him. “What?” Wally asks, slightly defensive.

“Nothing,” Strawberry says quickly, raising his hands up in a placating manner. “Just the face you made when I called you Wallace reminded me of someone.” He shrugs, still smiling slightly. “They also happen to be very defensive about their name.” Wally grins. He can understand that. “The name’s Hartley by the way.” Wally blinks, finally putting together why this guy seemed so familiar.

“Like, Hartley as in Rathaway?” He asks, as he zips up his bag. They both stand as Hartley responds.

“The one and only.” Hartley smiles, holding out his hand to Wally. Shaking the other boy’s hand, Wally smiles slightly.

The Rathaway family is one of the richest families in the Gem Cities and are supposedly super influential. From what Wally’s seen from the news and social media, the Rathaway’s are considered as _kind of a big deal_. Wally’s always assumed that rich people were either really dumb or really mean, with the exception of Oliver Queen. While he would sometimes act like an incredibly stupid playboy, Wally knows that he’s not really like that and that it’s _mostly_ all an act. Besides, Roy is Ollie’s adoptive son, and having money hasn’t made him into a jerk. Well, more of one. Wally’s not actually all too sure about that one right now. Roy’s not in any of his good books at the moment. Either way, Hartley seems nice enough.

The sound of the second bell ringing pulls Wally out of his thoughts. Class just started.

“Shit, I’m late.” Wally groans, slinging his backpack onto his shoulder. He turns back to Hartley with a sheepish smile. “So, thanks for the help earlier, wish I could stay and chat, but if I’m late for this class one more time, I’m screwed.” Hartley just nods in understanding.

“I get it. It was nice meeting you though, Wally.” He replies.

“Yeah, you too.” Wally says, meaning it. “See you later?” He finds himself asking, voice sounding childishly desperate even to his own ears.

“I’d like that.” Hartley smiles again and Wally feels oddly relieved by his response.

They say their farewells before Wally’s rushing down the halls, hoping beyond all hope that he can beat the teacher to class.

He doesn’t make it.

Trying to slip in through the back door while the teacher’s back is turned doesn’t end up working in Wally’s favour.

“Mr. West, kind of you to finally join us. Did you have a nice stroll?”

Wally grimaces at the teacher’s back as he gives up on his attempt to subtly enter the classroom. _She didn’t even turn around, what the Hell? How did she know I was even here? Teachers aren’t actually supposed to have eyes in the backs on their heads, are they?_ Mrs. Martin slowly turns around from writing on the blackboard and fixes Wally with an unamused expression, almost as if she had read his mind.

Wally doesn’t really doubt it. Mrs. Martin’s scary. She makes Captain Cold look like a kindergartener in the scaring business, not to mention she’s the oldest and longest working history teacher Keystone High has ever had. Like old enough to be in forced retirement. There are bets going around on whether or not Mrs. Martin is actually scaring the principal into letting her continue teaching. Wally’s pretty sure that another word for what she _could_ be doing is called _blackmail,_ and he’s not one to pry into other people’s business – unless it’s in their best interests’, then it’s fair game in Wally’s book. Mrs. Martin’s been working here longer than anyone in the school, aside from maybe the janitor, so it’s probably not that farfetched that she can sense when a teenager is trying to sneak into her class late. Or, she’s a Meta. There are bets for that too.

He laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of his head, and tries his best to keep from cowering under his teacher’s piercing gaze even as she raises an eyebrow at him expectantly. _She hates me._

“Sorry, Mrs. M. Lost track of time, it won’t happen again.” Wally says sheepishly, and smiles apologetically.

“See to it that it doesn’t, Mr. West. You can make up for the time you’ve wasted by attending detention at lunch today,” she says with fake delight. Wally catches himself before he can groan out a complaint. _Yup, it’s official, she hates me even more than she did last week. Apparently it’s actually possible._

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, slumping into the nearest empty chair. Wally swears that Mrs. Martin has it out for him. She always calls him out for the smallest things, _continuously_ marks him as absent even though he was _right here in the freaking class, thank you_ , and is a total Flash hater. Who in the right mind hates the Flash? _Mrs. Martin_ , obviously.

That right there proves that she’s out to get him. Wally is known as the school’s biggest Flash fan. Ever since he was a kid back in Blue Valley, he was the president of the Flash Fan Club, and _everyone_ at school knew about it. When he moved to Keystone, he proudly carried that title with him. Sure it made the bullying ten hundred times worse and he’s _still_ treated like an obsessive freak, but even still, he never stops trying to prove how utterly _awesome_ the Flash is, to everyone.

When Mrs. Martin had gotten word of Wally’s love of the Flash, she promptly hated him.

“Very, well. Now, today we will be discussing how the military used...” And Wally’s already zoning out, letting the teacher drone on in the background. He doesn’t normally pay much attention to this class. He’s already read the textbook four times and everything covered in this class is from the text, so it’s not like he’s really missing anything. This might be another reason why Mrs. Martin hates him. She’ll call on him, thinking he’s not paying attention – even though he’s not – and then he’ll answer the question correctly, without even thinking, and aggravate her further. It’s not Wally’s fault he knows everything about this class. The only reason he’s even in AP History is so his dad will get off his back about only studying sciences and not _broadening his views_. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Wally is a man of science. The mistakes and victories of former presidents don’t really matter to him. No offense to people who love history, it’s just that Wally would rather read about the scientific theories of the past than Winston Churchill. He’s sure that old Churchill was a swell guy and all, but he just wasn’t Einstein.

As Mrs. Martin continues lecturing about some type of military paraphernalia Wally tries not to fall asleep. This class is _so long_. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket suddenly and he almost jumps out of his chair. The girl beside him gives him a dirty look which Wally promptly ignores. Glancing at Mrs. Martin who still has her back to him and is writing on the board, Wally pulls his phone out of his pocket to glance at it, and sees a message from Robin.

_Hey, why’s Roy blowing up my phone with angry texts about you? What happened? - R_

Wally groans inwardly. Screw Roy. Of course he can’t just keep his stupid mouth shut. And Wally thought he was the one who ran his mouth too much.

_Ignore him. He’s being a dick. – W_

Almost instantly another text comes through, this time from Roy.

_We need to talk. Now – RH_

Wally almost starts laughing out loud at how demanding Roy can be through a freaking _text_ of all things. Making sure that Mrs. Martin isn’t watching, he texts him back.

_Fuck you. No. –W_

He regrets it about two minutes later when he doesn’t get a reply. Did he piss Roy off enough that he’s going to get the silent treatment now? Then the regret’s gone when he reminds himself that _Roy_ was the one who told Barry about patrol. _Roy’s_ the reason he’s grounded for basically a month with no patrol. _Roy’s the asshole who keeps blabbering his freaking mouth to everyone!_

“Mr. West.”

Wally snaps his head up from glaring at his notebook. Mrs. Martin is standing in front of his desk and staring down at him with an eyebrow raised. Wally belatedly notices that he’s the last one in the classroom. He was too distracted to notice the bell ring.

“If you’d like to be late for your next class, by all means do so. But I would much rather you leave my classroom.” Mrs. Martin says blandly, arms crossed. Wally swallows before nodding and picking up his backpack from under his desk. He shoves his notebook and pencil inside and stands up.

“Uh, sorry, Mrs. M.” He mumbles out, cheeks burning.

“Oh, and Mr. West?” Mrs. Martin says right before Wally reaches the door. Wally turns back to her and she smiles sweetly. Wally feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Do remember to attend detention today.” The look she gives Wally rivals the Bat-glare for creepiness, Wally’s positive.

“O-of course.” Wally stutters out before practically booking it out of the room. Some days, Wally questions whether or not Mrs. Martin ever took a course on how to make teenagers cower. He feels that she could’ve majored in that instead of history.

Wally manages to sneak into his next class undetected, which isn’t hard considering the teacher is worse than Uncle Barry at being on time. That thought makes Wally glare at the desk in front of him.

How is he supposed to convince Uncle Barry that he didn’t go on patrol without him figuring out about his home life? How is he supposed to get Roy off his back without getting in another fight? No matter what he does, he knows that Rob’s interest has been piqued, which is going to cause hell for Wally’s future. He’s going to have to be extra careful around everyone now. He doesn’t even know who knows what. The entire League could be watching him now. Hiding things from Uncle Barry isn’t impossible, keeping things from Roy is a challenge and a half, and distracting Rob from Wally’s personal problems is a twenty-four-seven adventure. Lying to the Batman is something Wally really doesn’t want to deal with and have to add to his daily list of troubles.

He doesn’t even think it’s possible to really lie to the Batman. Sure when he and Rob do something stupid and lie to Batman about it, Mr. Tall Dark and Gloomy doesn’t outright call them out on their lie, but Wally’s always assumed that was because he didn’t want to crush their tiny pitiful hearts. Instead of calling them out, Batman just makes their lives a living hell for a couple days, maybe weeks depending on what they broke/blew up/utterly destroyed with their antics. There’s no way Wally could seriously keep something big from the Batman without the man instantly knowing he’s lying to him. The only reason his home life is still a secret is because no one’s outright asked him what happens in his house. It’s easier to lie by omission than to tell a blatant lie. Plus, no one questions him.

He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. But at this point, it’s his safety net and he’ll do anything to protect it.

So if that means going along with a lie to keep everyone from looking into his home life, then he’ll do it, even if he _hates_ it. This would still have been so much easier if Roy hadn’t opened his stupid mouth.

By lunch, Wally’s sour mood has doubled. He marches back into Mrs. Martin’s classroom and plunks himself down into a chair. Slumping forward onto the desk, he groans out a greeting to Mrs. Martin who just raises an eyebrow at him before going back to her book.

“Find something productive to do, Mr. West.” She says after a moment and Wally glares at her even though she’s not even looking. He pulls out the same notebook from before, flips to an empty page, and promptly starts doodling on it. It’s not like Wally has any homework to do anyway. He’s caught up in everything thanks to his failure during his last mission, so there’s really nothing left to do but doodle.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he doesn’t even glance at Mrs. Martin before sliding it out of his pocket. There are four other unlucky students in detention with him right now, all of which are currently on their phones instead of doing their work. Besides, it’s not like Mrs. Martin really cares what they do with their time in detention. She just enjoys holding them all hostage. Wally swears Mrs. Martin would be an amazing super villain. And he’s not even saying that because it would mean he could give her a piece of her own medicine either, he just imagines that she could probably rise to the top of the bad guy food chain without a problem. All she’d have to do is look at them, and she’d get whatever she wants because they’d all be too scared to do anything but.

Wally looks at the text, expecting it to be Roy. Instead it’s Rob.

_Are you guys still not talking? – R_

Wally considers not replying because it should be obvious that _no, we are not talking right now, because Roy doesn’t deserve my attention thank you. He’s a jerk who breaks promises and is making my life a living hell. So,_ screw _him._

_Nope. – W_ is what he replies with instead.

_Do you want to talk about it? – R_

Wally stares at the phone for a minute, considering what to say. Then something clicks in his head.

_He’s with you right now, isn’t he? – W_

When he doesn’t get a reply, it proves Wally’s suspicions. Wally glares down at his phone.

_You both suck. Tell Roy to keep his stupid mouth shut. – W_

He puts his phone away and ignores the next several texts he gets. He starts doodling little trolls on the opened page of his notebook, giving them attributes to make them look more like Rob and Roy. Getting fed up at not being able to get the arrows right, Wally scribbles all over the paper, making the pictures look worse than before. He slams his notebook closed with a small sigh and spends the next twenty minutes twirling his pencil around his fingers. Mrs. Martin doesn’t seem to care, too focused on her book.

Wally contemplates sneaking out of the class before Mrs. Martin can notice but stops his thoughts short when Mrs. Martin glances at him with this _look_. Not for the first time in Wally’s life, he feels as though this woman can actually read minds. He gives up on planning his escape instantly, and goes back to twirling his pencil around.

The bell finally rings, signaling the end of lunch and Wally belatedly realises that he didn’t actually eat lunch. He finds he isn’t really all that hungry, surprisingly. He grabs an energy bar from his backpack and munches on it on his way to his next class.

AP Calculus.

While Wally normally enjoys math in general – he has to, it’s a science – he can admit that he’s not actually all that good at it. When it has to do with formulas, balancing equations, or finding a molecular volume of an acid, Wally can do it no problem, it’s when there starts to be graphs that involve things like _logarithms_ that Wally starts to not understand what’s going on. Rob was always the one who aced math questions. He’d take Wally’s homework and finish the questions Wally was literally spending _hours_ on and do them in less than a minute. Wally swears that Rob has to be on his school’s math team or something. If not, then he _needs_ to be.

After another hour of staring at lines on a graph and barely knowing what _the teacher is even talking about,_ Wally has to go to PE. This is his least favourite part of the day. History’s bad, sure, but at least his History class isn’t full of a bunch of adolescent males beating each other up with dodge balls or whatever else they can get their hands on. Mrs. Martin may hate him, but at least she’s _human_. Wally’s fairly certain that his PE teacher is actually some type of demon from hell that’s come to take his life. He’s also fairly certain that his PE teacher is a total creep. Either that or the man is just obsessed with Wally.

Wally doesn’t try very hard in PE. Well, he does try hard. He tries his damndest to look weak and like he can’t run the fifteen laps of the playing field in under a minute. He has to force himself to _not_ dodge every ball coming at him even though he sees it moving _fifteen times slower than everyone else_ and his instincts are screaming at him to _move_. He tries way harder than what should be necessary. And even if he actually gets more of a workout by trying to not show his powers, all it does is make it easier for the bullies to get to him. It also pisses his teacher off to no end.

The man must have this feeling that Wally’s holding back, which he admittedly is, because even though when Wally forces himself to slow down, he’s still faster than some of the other kids, Mr. Leroy always yells at _him_ to go faster. Wally doesn’t get it. Maybe it’s because he has a runner’s body, which is harder to hide under sweats and long sleeves than he originally thought, or it could be because Wally still hasn’t perfected the fake pant or flush that comes when someone really gives their all in running. He’s still breathing evenly after ten laps and not even breaking a sweat. It’s hard for Wally to fake exertion so Mr. Leroy must know that he’s holding back. But no matter how many times Mr. Leroy yells at him to try harder, Wally can’t break his cover, so he continues to act like the laps are strenuous and difficult. Slowing his running down may be harder than speeding up but it still doesn’t really exert that much energy. He could run laps for hours without breaking a sweat in that class.

Dodge ball is a different story though, because while running doesn’t require a ton of thought, Dodge ball does. Wally has to focus on slowing down enough to seem clumsy enough that he can’t dodge the balls coming at him. In reality, he see’s everything happen in a game in slow motion. He sees a jock pull his arm back, see’s his arm stretch the further back he pulls it, see’s the ball leave his hands, his wrist flicking on the release, sees the ball come towards him, and has to physically force himself to take the hit. He can move slightly so the ball doesn’t hurt him that much, but he can’t move _enough,_ because while these people are jocks, they’re jocks that can aim, and if Wally’s suddenly not where they aimed, Wally doesn’t doubt that they’ll notice something’s up. The balls hurt, especially head shots, but when Wally gets hit in his arm, Wally can’t help but grimace from the pain. Even today, his arm still twinges and still has some greenish yellow bruises from his wrist to his elbow.

But since the jocks get more motivated when Wally shows some type of reaction, Wally pushes the pain to the back of his mind and continues on like nothing happened, like his arm isn’t screaming at him right now.

The rest of the game is spent by Wally being over-focused on his surroundings. He sees every threat from a distance and categorises it in his head into a list by what the most pressing issue is, and then promptly figures out a way to combat the threat without giving himself away.

By the end of the class, Wally’s mentally exhausted. Going against his instincts to run makes him twitchy on its own, forcing himself to let people throw large rubber balls at him without him really being able to do anything, is just plain stressful.

Being over-focused for so long leaves him on edge and distracted, so he doesn’t notice someone coming up beside him at his locker until he turns slightly and sees someone suddenly standing to his left.

“Hey,” Hartley smiles but Wally can see the concern in the crease of his eyebrows. “Are you okay?” Wally blinks.

“Huh? Yeah, why?” Hartley raises an eyebrow and looks down between them. Wally follows his gaze to see a textbook he must have dropped without realising it. “Um. Whoops?” Wally murmurs sheepishly, bending down to pick the book up and slide it into his locker. “So, uh, what’s up?” Wally inwardly groans. _Smooooth, you definitely know how to act like a normal person Wallman. Keep it up._

“Not much, I wanted to see if you were up to hanging out today?” Hartley asks, thankfully ignoring Wally’s awkwardness. Wally has to think for a moment because Hartley just asked to hang out with him. No one ever asks to hang out with _him_ , everyone thinks he’s a total freak. _Wait does this mean Hartley doesn’t think I’m a total freak then?_ “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to–”

“Sure!” Wally blurts out, cutting Hartley off. “I-I mean, yeah. Like, that’d be cool. Yeah.” Wally stammers, cheeks burning. Hartley only smiles at him and Wally wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole before he can make a complete fool out of himself.

“Great.” Hartley says, and Wally can’t help but feel surprised by the genuine joy in Hartley’s voice. Wally’s never had someone _want_ to hang out with him before. He suddenly dreads ruining this moment. What if Hartley figures out that he’s really a lame person and not worth his time at all? Wally really doesn’t want to mess this up by being his stupid freak-self.

Wally finishes packing his bag and closes his locker door. They start making their way towards the front doors and Wally can’t help but feel anxious. He hasn’t hung out with someone since he was a kid back in Blue Valley. Sure, he hangs out with Rob or Roy but they don’t count because he met them through the superhero business, and while Rob is Wally’s _Best Friend_ , he’s still not from Wally’s civilian life. Wally doesn’t have any friends as a civilian, so he really, _really_ wants Hartley to like him.

“So, wanna grab a bite somewhere?” Hartley pulls him out of his thoughts and Wally looks back at him. Hartley smiles at him calmly and not at all like he thinks Wally’s a waste of space.

“Uh, sure. We could go to... uh...” Wally trails off, thoughts blanking. He’s never been out with anyone aside from his aunt and uncle, so he’s not sure where regular teenagers go to hang out. He doesn’t want to sound lame to the older boy. Hartley just shrugs.

“We could go to the arcade and pick up some pizza or something.” He supplies as they open the front doors and exit the building. The arcade! Perfect!

“Sounds awesome!” Wally says, relieved. He grins at Hartley but falters when he sees past the older teen’s shoulder. He feels his jaw clench and his eyes narrow when he sees a small teenager with jet black hair and sunglasses sitting on the small cement wall swinging his legs. Beside him, leaning on the cement wall is an older redhead with his arms crossed over his chest. Of freaking course they showed up at his freaking school. Because why the hell not?!

“Friends?” Hartley asks when he follows Wally’s gaze. Wally gives a short laugh that probably sounds more like a scoff than anything. “Fighting?” He asks and Wally looks back to him, anger draining off of his face.

“Something like that.” Wally mumbles, wondering if there’s even a little chance he could just walk right past them, ignoring them completely, and get away with it. Knowing Roy, probably not. Rob’s finally noticed him and is waving at them. Wally can practically feel the glare coming from Roy. He glances back at Hartley apologetically. “I don’t think I can lose them.” He admits. Hartley shakes his head.

“It’s fine.” He says glancing back at Wally’s friends. “You should probably go talk to them.”

“I’m sorry.” Wally blurts out and Hartley looks at him confused. “I... I, uh. I mean, um. Can we do a rain check? I mean, like you don’t have to, I just thought that, uh–”

“I’d like that.” Hartley smiles at him and Wally feels stupidly happy for a moment. “Now you should probably go over there before the scary looking one comes over and drags you.” Wally can’t help but laugh.

“I wouldn’t put it past him. See you later Hartley.” Wally grins before heading down the steps towards Roy and Rob.

“Bye, Wally.” He hears Hartley call after him.

Each step towards his two friends makes his heart rate go up. He stops in front of them and Rob hops down from the cement wall, landing gracefully on his feet.

“Who’s he?” Roy grunts in greeting, nodding towards Hartley. Wally glances back and catches Hartley’s eye. He waves at him nervously before turning back to Roy.

“A friend.” He replies bluntly. Rob hums and for a second Wally thinks that he’s glaring at Hartley’s retreating form, before the raven haired teen shrugs his shoulders, expression going back to his eerie neutral.

“So what’s up?” Rob asks, looking back at Wally.

“I was going to ask the same thing. Why are you guys here?” Wally demands, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Can’t friends visit friends?” Rob asks, grinning. Wally doesn’t even look at him, just glares at Roy.

“Yeah, sure. _Friends_ can visit other friends.” He says through his teeth. He can tell that Roy’s rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses, and it pisses Wally off further. “What I want to know is why _you’re_ here.” Wally says with as much disgust as he can muster. Roy raises an eyebrow.

“Stop acting like an idiot.” Roy says, straightening up and walking towards him. “Are you gunna hit me?” He asks and Wally blinks, confused. “Then get it over with. Otherwise, come on.” Roy grabs Wally’s wrist and starts pulling him to the sidewalk. Wally yanks his arm out of the older teen’s grasp and glares at him.

“Screw you!” He practically shouts.

“Wally,” Roy starts but Wally’s freaking _mad_ at him and Roy just _doesn’t get it_.

“No, you asshole!” Wally snaps. “You freaking sold me out, you big stupid liar! You _promised_ me you wouldn’t tell him. I didn’t break my promises so screw you for telling him, you stupid jerk! I’m fucking grounded for a month because you had to go and be an asshole. Why’d you even say anything to him, huh? Why the hell couldn’t you just keep your big dumb mouth shut?” Wally knows he’s ranting but Roy almost ruined everything Wally’s built, doesn’t he get it? Wally almost lost _everything_. “He doesn’t trust me anymore because you had to blab to him. _Uncle Barry doesn’t trust me now_!”

“Wally.” Roy says calmly. Wally shakes his head, fighting back the burning feeling behind his eyes. He is so _not_ going to break down in tears in front of his school – in front of _Roy_. Nope, not going to happen. He’s _not_ a baby.

“You sold me out and I should at least get to know why.” _What do I have to do next time so this doesn’t ever happen again?_ “He threatened to take away my _ring_.” He looks back up at Roy, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“What did you expect me to do, Wally?” Roy asks quietly. _I don’t know Roy. Not say anything? Keep your mouth shut? Leave it alone?_ “You haven’t been acting like yourself and then you go and do this stupid experiment. I don’t know, Wally, maybe I was just concerned about your wellbeing or something. Is that so bad? Does that really make me such an awful person?” Roy asks, exasperated.

“I was fine. I don’t understand why everyone is making such a big freaking deal out of this. So I did something stupid, _who cares?_ Everything’s fine–”

“You almost died.” Rob interrupts from the side. Wally almost forgot he was there. He looks back over at the raven haired teen. Rob’s staring at the ground, one arm crossed over his chest to grab his other arm. It’s the most vulnerable Wally thinks he’s ever seen him. “If I hadn’t found you when I did, that guy could have...” Rob looks up at him, his lip quivering slightly. “Look, I know we said we were okay, and everything was okay because you were fine and safe, but it’s _not_ okay. What happened wasn’t okay, alright? That guy, he had his _hands_ on you, he was going to – he was going t-to – what if I wasn’t there? What if I-I didn’t make it in time? God, Wally, you weren’t in any shape to fight and he _knew_ that and he almost, he almost – and he _hurt_ you, and you’re just acting like nothing happened, like that didn’t happen, and you can’t tell me you don’t remember, ‘cause I know you do, so stop acting like everything’s okay, ‘cause it’s not–”

“Rob.” Roy cuts in and Rob visibly swallows before wringing his hands in front of him.

“Roy had every right to tell Barry.” He starts again, voice quiet. “Because if something like that happened while you were alone out on the streets, and no one knew where you were, what would you do?” Rob looks back up at him and Wally has to look away. “Barry deserves to know whether you’re safe or not, Wally. He’s your family.”

“I know.” Wally murmurs, feeling completely awful.

“Look, I’m sorry that Barry freaked out at you.” Roy says, coming up to Wally again, and placing a hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting him to do that, but you need to accept that he’s allowed to ground you. If he feels it’s necessary to make you realise your actions could’ve gotten you seriously hurt, then he’s allowed to take things away from you.” Wally feels like pointing out that he never went on patrol without permission but bites his tongue. It would only cause more problems for him right now. Instead, he nods and stares at the ground between the three of them.

“I’m sorry.” Wally forces the words out past the lump in his throat. Roy squeezes his shoulder before pulling him into a one armed hug. Wally can’t help but hug back. Roy doesn’t hug often, but they’ve always comforted Wally, even awkward one-armed ones.

“I’ll talk to Barry, okay?” Roy says, releasing Wally from his hold. “Maybe see if he can cut a week off of your probation. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll talk to Hal. Barry will listen to him.” Wally makes a face.

“No one listens to Hal.” He says and Roy laughs.

“With good reason.” Rob adds, smirking.

“So much hate, his ears must be burning.” Wally grins.

“Nah, he’s probably used to it by now.” Roy says, hooking his arm with Wally’s. “Now, come on. I promised someone ice cream, and I plan on getting to the store before it closes.” He says while he starts dragging Wally down the sidewalk.

“ _Finally_.” Rob says exasperatedly, hooking his arm around Wally’s other arm, and skipping ahead to try and make Wally move faster.

“Oh my God, please don’t tell me you only came because Roy bribed you with ice cream.” Wally asks amused.

“Of course not.” Rob says seriously. Wally raises an eyebrow at him.

“Bull.” Roy drawls and Wally laughs at the dirty look Rob sends the taller redhead.

“No, Roy. I came to see my Best Friend. Ice cream was just... an added bonus.” Wally laughs again and Rob sticks his tongue out at him.

They make it to the ice cream parlor with Rob only attacking Roy for mocking him once. Wally thinks this is actually the first time he’s been in the company of both Roy and Rob where they haven’t tried to actively end the other. It’s amusing to say the least.

“Alright, orders?” Roy asks when they see the line up outside the parlor. It’s a mutual agreement that it would be best if Wally and Rob both stay outside, that way, there’s less of a chance of there being property damage to the store itself.

“Vanilla sundae, extra rainbow sprinkles, and a small amount of chocolate syrup.” Rob says with his chin up, looking for all the world like a spoiled brat. Wally coughs to cover up the laughter when Roy just gives Rob this _look_.

“Ok, whatever, weirdo.” He says ignoring the tongue Rob sticks out at him, and turns to Wally.

“Triple Chocolate Fudge Sundae with extra fudge.” Wally says after pondering for a moment. Roy wrinkles his nose up.

“Am I going to regret giving you sugar?” Roy asks, taking his sunglasses off of his face and tucking them into the pocket on the inside of his jacket.

“When have you ever?” Wally blinks his eyes innocently and Roy’s eye does this funny twitchy thing.

“Every time.” He mutters before heading inside the store to grab their orders.

“He’s just jealous that he’s not as energetic as us.” Rob says, hopping up onto the small cement wall behind them. Wally’s pretty sure that this is becoming a habit – Robin climbing up walls to overlook the people below. Though to be fair, Rob’s only maybe half an inch taller than Wally while sitting on the little ledge, so it’s really not much.

“Dude, I think he’s worried that there’s going to be a repeat of the incident at Ollie’s Christmas party last year.” Wally grins.

“Hey, it wasn’t _my_ fault that someone mixed the champagne with the ice cream.” Rob says defensively.

“Dude, you’re the one who mixed them.” Wally points out.

“ _That_ was never proven. Besides, no one else complained.” Wally laughs at the memory. Ollie was too amused and drunk to get mad at them. Roy still refuses to bring them to parties anymore though.

“Hey, look who it is?”

Wally freezes. He sees Rob glance past Wally’s shoulder to see who it is. Wally doesn’t want to turn around.

“Hey. _Hey_. Freckle Fuck.” Mitchell slaps a hand on Wally’s shoulder and Wally tries not to notice Rob frown, instead he lets himself be turned around, swallowing.

“H-hey Mitchell.” Wally tries to keep the blatant fear out of his voice. Why did he have to show up here of all places? Why now, when Roy and Rob are both here. How’s Wally supposed to look them in the eye after this?

“Didn’t know you were keeping friends from us.” Mitchell says, smile full of teeth. “Isn’t he a little young for you, Freckle Fuck?” Mitchell asks, face contorting into a parody of concern. Wally hears Rob hop off of the wall and land behind him. Wally would give anything for this to not be happening, for the ground to just _suck him down and drown him_. Mitchell squeezes his shoulder and Wally didn’t realise he was shaking until Mitchell outright grins. “Don’t be so scared, we just want to talk.” The henchmen laugh behind him and Wally feels sick to his stomach. “How’s he feel? Bet he’s tight.” Wally blanches and thinks he might actually throw up right there in front of a family ice cream parlor. There’s no way he would _ever_ – Rob’s his Best Friend! He would never–

“Excuse me?” He hears Rob ask from behind him. Wally thinks he might pass out. Or die. Anything would be better than _being here_ –

“Oh, is it the other way around?” Mitchell asks skeptically. “Didn’t think you’d let a kid use you like that Freckle Fuck. Damn.” He pats the side of Wally’s head and Wally can’t stop from flinching.

“Let him go.” Rob says from behind Wally and he’d give anything for Rob to just _leave_ right now. Not to have to witness this, to hear any of this. The henchmen move slightly from behind Mitchell, ready to grab Rob if needed. _God, why is any of this happening right now?_

“Here I thought you were a man, West, guess I was wrong. You’re just a little freak. A weak little faggot–”

“ _Get your hands off of him_.” Mitchell’s hand is grabbed and ripped off of Wally’s shoulder and Wally stumbles backwards shocked. He didn’t even notice Roy showing up. Wally swallows and reaches for Roy because Roy looks like he’s going to murder someone and there are _little kids around_ that don’t need to see this and Roy could actually _hurt_ someone–

Rob pulls him back a couple steps by his elbow before he can reach Roy. “Who the hell do you think you are?” Mitchell sneers and Roy actually _growls_ at him, his fists clenched, and takes a step towards him. One of the henchmen grabs at Roy’s arm and Wally almost misses Roy pulling his arm back before he’s swinging a right hook at the henchman’s face, because when Roy’s angry, he’s _fast_. The guy falls, hard.

“ _Roy!_ ” Wally’s pretty sure that his voice is about three octaves higher than normal, but Roy could’ve just broken the guy’s nose or given him a black eye, or _both_ , and Wally’s going to get in so much trouble for this. He won’t be able to go to school – he’ll have to drop out. Mitchell’s going to _kill him_ for this.

Mitchell takes a swing at Roy who dodges easily before punching Mitchell in the jaw. Wally hears a crack and he’s not sure whether it was Mitchell’s jaw or a bone in Roy’s hand, but right now it doesn’t matter because Wally’s not going to live past tomorrow. He’s a dead man now. He squirms out of Rob’s grip to grab Roy by the arm and tug him backwards. Mitchell’s on the ground spitting out blood and swearing at them. Roy tries to break free from Wally because Mitchell’s screaming at him and calling him a faggot and things that Wally can’t even decipher because of the slur in Mitchell’s words.

“Come on.” He says tugging on Roy’s arm. “Please. Let them go. They aren’t worth it.”

“You’re fucking _dead_ , West.” Mitchell spits out and Wally flinches, instinctively putting more space between him and Mitchell.

“Come _on_ , Roy. Come on...” Roy finally gives and turns to pick up the ice creams Wally guesses he put on the bench before running in to punch Mitchell’s face in. He hands Wally and Rob their ice creams wordlessly. Rob looks pale and nervous. Wally knows he must look pathetic right now but he wasn’t expecting Mitchell to show up here. He never took him as an ice cream fan.

“Hey...” Rob tries to catch his eye but Wally can’t meet his eyes right now.

“Come on.” Wally mutters, turning away from Rob and heading away from the parlor and Mitchell’s gang, who are still picking themselves up off the ground. Wally tries not to think about the look in Mitchell’s eyes.

_You’re fucking dead, West._

He supposes he is.

Wally leads them to a park where they hopefully won’t be bothered. Rob checks over Roy’s knuckles after threatening bodily harm if Roy didn’t let him make sure they weren’t broken. Wally’s heart’s beating a mile a minute and the ice cream is doing nothing to calm him. He’s sitting on the grass staring at the small blades as they move along with the breeze.

_Why is everything so complicated every time I try to have a normal life?_

“Wally?”

Wally looks up at Rob who’s staring down at him worriedly.

“What?” He asks coughing when his voice cracks.

“I asked if you were okay.” Rob says slowly. Wally gives a short laugh and forces a smile onto his face.

“Yeah, man. I’m fine.” He lies.

“Your hands are shaking.” Rob points out. Wally looks down at his hands and notices that the barely touched sundae he’s still holding is quivering from how hard his hands are shaking. Oh.

“Sorry?” He says because he doesn’t really know what else to say at this point. When he looks up again, both Rob and Roy are frowning at him.

“Wally.” Roy looks like he’s about to give a lecture and Wally can’t really handle that right now so–

“You shouldn’t have done that.” He blurts out, looking back down to the melting sundae in his hands. “It was stupid.” It was. It was dangerous and reckless and everything they’re not supposed to do as civilians. Because secret identities are important and causing fights will only make everything worse and complicated and doesn’t Roy get that? Doesn’t he understand how utterly screwed Wally is now? _You’re fucking dead, West_ –

“Excuse me?” Roy asks. Wally hears him straighten up on the park bench he’s sitting on, and tenses unconsciously. “Are you telling me I shouldn’t have stood up for you with how those jackasses were treating you?”

“Yes.” Wally says as sternly as he can but he can’t stop his voice from shaking.

“So you could what? Just let them walk all over you like that?” He hears Roy get up and walk towards him. Wally gets up before Roy reaches him out of instinct.

“I had it under control.” He knows no one will believe that, he can’t even convince himself. He can’t even meet Roy’s eyes as he says it.

“Bullshit.” Roy snaps and Wally flinches away from him.

“Roy.” Rob warns from somewhere behind Roy but the archer doesn’t seem to hear him.

“How often does this happen?” He asks and Wally grimaces, shaking his head.

“No. It’s not like – they’re just bullies, Roy. They’re just full of words. It’s fine.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, Wally.” Roy bites out. “Why the hell don’t you stick up for yourself?”

“It’s not that simple.” Wally says defensively. How is he supposed to make Roy understand? “I have an identity to keep hidden–”

“I’m not saying you have to beat them up, Wally. I’m saying to stick up for yourself, tell them to fuck off.” Wally laughs.

“Because, that works _so_ well.” He spits out, walking around Roy and over to the park bench. He doesn’t miss the worried look that Rob gives him.

“Did they give you the black eye?” Roy asks, spinning around and following Wally back to the bench.

“What?”

“Did they give you the black eye from last week that the _stairs_ supposedly gave you?” Roy demands. Wally groans.

“Oh my God, Roy, why can’t you just let that _go_ already?” Wally asks exasperatedly.

“Did they, or did they not?”

“Just let it freaking _go!_ ” Wally groans, collapsing onto the bench and glaring down at the sundae in his hands. “It doesn’t fucking matter what happened, it was just a stupid black eye. It healed, who gives a fuck?” He spits out through clenched teeth as he stabs at the sundae with his spoon. Why does Roy keep harassing him about all of this stuff? Why does one stupid black eye matter all of a sudden? Wally’s clumsy, everyone knows that, so why is it so hard for freaking _Roy Harper_ to believe he fell down the stairs? He’s done things far stupider than that, so why does this one little accident matter? And it’s not even like Wally’s lying about what happened. He fell down the stairs. End of story.

“Wally?”

“ _What?_ ” Wally snaps his head up to glare up at Rob. “Are you gunna call me a liar too?”

“I wasn’t calling you a liar–”

“No,” Rob cuts Roy off, shaking his head. “I was just going to ask you why you’re beating up on your ice cream.” Wally looks down at the mess of chocolate in the little plastic cup. It doesn’t even resemble a sundae now. Wally frowns and puts the cup down on the bench beside him before he can butcher it any further.

“Eat the ice cream, Wally.” Roy demands and Wally can practically hear the eye roll the archer gives him from here. Wally just glares down at his lap.

“Are you feeling okay?” Wally sighs and looks up at his friend.

“I’m fine.” Rob frowns at him. “I’m just tired.” He amends, trying to reassure him but he knows it’s a vain attempt. Rob crosses his arms across his chest.

“When’s the last time you ate?” He asks and Wally blinks at him.

“Alright, _mom_.” Wally rolls his eyes before getting up with his sundae to throw it out in the trash. He wasn’t really that hungry to begin with. “I’m _fine,_ jeez.”

“Wally.” Roy warns. “If you’re still doing that dumb little experiment–”

“Oh, screw off!” Wally whirls around at him, fists clenched. “You don’t know anything about it, so stop acting like you do!” Roy straightens his back and Wally’s reminded of the height difference between them and how easy it would be for Roy to hurt him, to–

“Then why don’t you explain it to us?” Rob asks, looking up at him and kicking a stray rock with the toe of his shoe. “Explain what made you do that in the first place. What possessed you to think it was a good idea.” Wally won’t meet his eyes.

“You wouldn’t understand.” Wally mumbles, rubbing a hand across his face. And how could they? He doesn’t even know why he did it in the first place. He was bored and decided to experiment with food. It’s not like was planning on doing it again, it was a onetime deal, more impulse than plan. It’s fine.

“Try us.” Wally can’t help but grimace because Roy’s voice sounds too soft, it’s strange. He’s used to it being gruff and full of a mixture of emotions, mostly anger, but still. It’s not normally genuine kindness or cautious concern. Wally doesn’t know how to react to kindness from him. Sure, Roy’s not normally intentionally _mean_ to him but he’s also not intentionally _nice_ to him either. Roy’s... Roy. He’s weird with showing emotions, weirder than Wally is, at least. When it comes to Roy’s display of emotions, Wally can only understand his anger and his overprotectiveness.

Wally doesn’t really understand kindness. Like, at all. Anger is easy. He’s been dealing with anger being shoved onto him for his entire life, he knows how to take it, dish it, and deflect it by now. As a kid, anger was all Wally thought he would ever get as an emotion out of someone. But, things changed once Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry walked into his life. Suddenly, people were being _friendly_ to him and it wasn’t to see if they could gain something from him. Wally was honestly terrified at first. Kindness was a foreign concept that he wouldn’t let himself trust initially. He thought that they were trying to suck him in just to hurt him, like everyone else before them had, so he kept himself guarded because he didn’t want to be tricked again. They never did hurt him, but Wally still sometimes finds himself doubting their kindness. It’s like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even if there might not be another shoe.

Uncle Barry was the first one to ever be protective of Wally and it threw him for a loop. Wally thought that his uncle was just being freakishly possessive of him like how his dad would get when it came to his bottle of whiskey. Wally had quickly figured out that Uncle Barry was just being ‘protective’ of him and it had nothing to do with being possessive. For some reason, Barry Allen wanted Wally West to be safe. It started when Wally met the man, and while Wally may not really understand _why_ his uncle is so protective of him, he slowly learned how to deal with it.  It still freaks him out when his uncle gets all over-the-top-unnecessarily-overprotective though, because he doesn’t know whether he should apologize or feel honoured to be worth that much to someone. It always makes him feel anxious and confused, so he tries to make it so Uncle Barry won’t have to be so protective of him. He trains hard so he won’t worry the Flash out in the field, and keeps every problem at home and school from Uncle Barry to ensure that there’s less for him to be overprotective of.

Then _Roy Harper_ shows up and is just as overprotective of Wally as Uncle Barry is. Maybe even more. It’s to the point where Wally thinks that Roy is being overprotective of him around Uncle Barry because he doesn’t like the man, and Uncle Barry is being overprotective of him around Roy because he, quote, “isn’t a good example for you”. It’s like they’re having a war over him and Wally has no say on the matter. It’s ridiculous, and it makes him seriously uncomfortable. He hasn’t done anything to deserve that kind of treatment. They shouldn’t have to waste their time on him like that, but no matter what he does, they won’t stop being overprotective of him.

“Wally?” Roy’s directly in front of Wally now, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“I’m fine.” He says quickly. Roy frowns and Wally has to think about what they were just talking about. “I-I mean, it’s fine. It was dumb and it’s never happening again.” He rushes on, backing away when Roy reaches for him. “Look, I gotta go.” He says to Roy’s chest because he can’t make eye contact.

“Walls, come on.” Roy grabs his bad elbow and Wally winces at the discomfort. Roy’s brows furrow but he doesn’t let go. “I thought you weren’t injured anymore.” He states accusingly, staring Wally down.

“It’s not – I mean, it’s just bruised, it’s nothing really.” He blabbers out because Roy just keeps staring at his arm. “Roy, I’m fine, really.”

“Can I see?” Roy asks quietly and Wally doesn’t know how to say no when Roy’s voice is doing that weird soft-thing again. Roy doesn’t wait for a response before pushing the sleeve of Wally’s sweater up. His arm looks better than it had that morning. The bruises are mostly gone, only scattered yellowish ones remain.

“See, I’m fine.” Wally tugs his arm free after a moment and pulls the sleeve back down. “I’m all better now, so you can stop worrying about me.” He says, crossing his arms over his chest. He hates how touchy people get when making sure he’s okay. He’s never sure whether they’re actually seeing if he’s okay or are going to hurt him. “So, anyway, I gotta go, ‘cause my mom is probably expecting me home and I don’t want to be late for dinner, and I have a ton of homework that’s due, like, tomorrow, soI’lljustseeyouguyslaterorsomething. Yeah.” Wally swallows, cutting himself off before he can ramble any further.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rob asks, walking out from behind Roy.

“Yeah, why?” Rob frowns.

“You don’t normally rush your words unless you’re nervous or excited. And you don’t seem excited.” He states, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’m fine.” Wally repeats himself for what feels like the tenth time today. “Totally a-okay peacheria.”

“I don’t know what you just said, but you’re not okay.” Roy says, glaring. Wally shakes his head nervously.

“I’m fine, guys.” Wally says. “Seriously.” He adds when neither Rob nor Roy make as if to believe him. It takes ten seconds before Roy snaps at him.

“Bullshit. Explain to me how you’re _fine_?” Roy demands.

“I don’t know, maybe because it wasn’t that big of a deal?” Wally shrugs his shoulders, not sure what Roy’s problem is all of a sudden.

“ _Really?_ So it’s an everyday occurrence that those jackasses accuse you of raping a thirteen year-old?” Wait, _what?_

“Roy, what the _hell_?–”

“Great. Good to know that that’s acceptable to you. What else do you let them say about you? Hell, what else do you let them do to you? Since you seem so fond of letting them walk all over you, they can probably do whatever the fuck they want to you, can’t they? ‘Cause if this is completely fine to you, this couldn’t have been a onetime thing, ‘cause there’s no way you could just be fine with what they said back there. There’s no way you’d ever accept that raping your best friend is an okay thing to do–”

“ _Roy!_ ” Rob suddenly shouts and Roy slams his jaw shut. Wally’s never heard Rob sound that angry before.

Wally glances over to Rob who looks stuck between wanting to punch Roy and fainting. His face has almost zero color and Wally can tell his eyes are huge behind his sunglasses.

“Enough.” Rob says, much quieter now that Roy’s stopped ranting.

There’s this moment of silence that Wally doesn’t know if he should break or not. Rob’s glaring at Roy who still looks pissed but seems to be calming down. Wally doesn’t know what he should say. He doesn’t know how to fix this, any of this. This should never have happened.

“Rob...” Roy starts but Rob starts shaking his head.

“It’s not true.”

Both heads turn towards him suddenly and it takes Wally a moment because he _didn’t mean to say anything_. “What Mitchell said, it’s not true.” His continues, voice shaking again. “I-I just, I just thought that you should know that it wasn’t true. Any of it.”

“I know.” Rob says slowly. Rob reaches for him but Wally takes a step backwards.

“Wally...” Rob looks so hurt but Wally just takes another backwards step.

“I gotta go.” Wally tries to sound anything but a guilty mess but he knows it all shows on his face. “I can’t be late for dinner, and homework and I just – I’m sorry.” He blurts out, avoiding both of their eyes.

“Wally, you don’t have to–”

“I’ll text you later, ‘kay?” Wally asks, cutting Roy off. Wally’s not sure whether it’s the fact that Wally’s shaking like a leaf or because of how desperate he sounds but Roy nods after a moment.

“Okay.” He says. “But, Wally, I didn’t mean to–”

“I know. It’s okay.” Wally says before Roy can finish. He turns to Rob who’s just staring at him, emotions pulled off his face. Rob doesn’t normally close off around them and it makes Wally feel incredibly guilty. _I really hurt him, didn’t I?_ “See you in training?” He asks, unsure. Rob nods slowly.

“...Sure.” He says quietly.

“I really am sorry about today.” Wally says earnestly, without meeting their eyes. Before either of them can reply, he’s already turning on his heel and running back to his house.

_Why is everything always so complicated? And how do I fix this? Where do I even start?_

Wally misses being four. There wasn’t as much to deal with back then. Life was simple and made _sense_. Now it just _doesn’t_.

_What am I supposed to do now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hartley snuck himself in there. He originally wasn't even a character at ALL, like none of the rogues were, but now he is and I love him. He is my precious baby aside from Wally, so he will be making more appearances... :D I would also like to point out that this piece of work will be longer than I originally thought, so warning for that. I finished drafting the chapters out and I came to like 57 chapters, but considering the amount of extra detail I put into each chapter, that will probably go up.
> 
> I'm also not going to promise a quick posting of the next chapter given it's the holidays and such but just know that I'm not letting this story go. I've worked too damn hard on this for that to happen!

**Author's Note:**

> So this is one of my first works, so you if you could let me know what your thoughts are, I'd REALLY appreciate it. And i'm really sorry for being so mean to Walls, he's just so easy to bully. His life will get better I promise!! (Just after a truckload of angst and FEELS~!)
> 
> If there are any spelling errors/grammitical errors/just error errors, (cuz I'm not perfect) please let me know.


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